Mémoire de fille

In 2020, the Parisian writer Annie Ernaux is invited to sign copies of her latest book in Rouen, the city where she once studied as a 17-year-old. It was a time when she was ready for new experiences, but stood out above all for her innocence and naivety. When she starts working as a counsellor at a summer camp, she quickly becomes the butt of everyone’s jokes. The head of the summer camp sets his sights on her and manages to get her into bed. It is Annie’s first sexual experience, but certainly not one she looks back on with fondness. Now that she has returned to Rouen, all those memories resurface – feelings of shame and humiliation that she is now trying to make sense of.

How memories can become permanently embedded in the body is the theme of this poignant coming-of-age drama, Judith Godrèche’s feature film debut. She based it on the 2017 autobiographical novel of the same name by Nobel Prize winner Annie Ernaux. Godrèche’s daughter, Tess Barthélemy, plays the young Annie.