PEPPERMINT SODA / Diabolo Menthe
Saturday, April 28 – 11:15 am – Renoir Theatre
40th anniversary – World Premiere (restored film) | France | 1978 | Comedy, Drama | 97 min | In French with English subtitles
Directed by: Diane Kurys
Written by: Diane Kurys, Alain Le Henry
Cinematography: Philippe Rousselot
Film Editing: Catherine Michel, Joële Van Effenterre
Original Score: Yves Simon
Produced by: Serge Laski (Les Films de l’Alma) , Jean-Claude Fleury, Diane Kurys, Alexandre Arcady
Cast: Eléonor Klarwein (Anne Weber), Odile Michel (Frédérique Weber), Coralie Clément (Perrine), Anouk Ferjac (Mrs. Weber), Yves Rénier (Philippe)
International Sales: TF1 Studio
U.S. Distributor: Cohen Media Group
This utterly charming coming-of-age film chronicles Anne’s 1963-64 school year — fighting with her sister, dealing with her parents’ divorce, struggling through school, pleading with Mom, getting her first period, discovering boys… Diane Kurys’ meticulous, buoyant, autobiographical directorial debut is a veritable scrapbook illustration of growing up in the early sixties, with snippets of joy and heartbreak, where every challenge looms with the enormity of Mount Everest, yet told in the deliciously matter-of-fact voice of a 13-year-old.
Diane Kurys | Writer/director Diane Kurys began her career as an actor with the great Jean-Louis Barrault’s theater company, performing in plays, television programs and movies for eight years. Peppermint Soda, her first film behind the camera, won the coveted Prix Louis-Delluc for best first feature that year. A pivotal figure in the rise of women directors in France, Kurys has always crossed the divide between commercial success and an auteurist, feminist cinema, drawing upon personal experience and memory, and often creating characters based on herself, her sister and, especially, her mother. Her second film, Cocktail Molotov (1980), recounts Anne’s (Diane’s) political awakening in the volatile days of May ’68. In Entre Nous (1983), which was nominated for the Best Foreign Film Oscar, Isabelle Huppert plays Kurys’ fifties’-housewife mother, languishing in a loveless marriage, flourishing in the glow of female friendship, and finally divorcing her husband to launch a career. And A Man in Love (1987) recounts a woman’s journey from frustrated actress to fulfilled writer, much like the director’s own career path. Kurys has written and directed 13 films to date, including For a Woman (COLCOA 2014). Her most recent film, Ma Mère Est Folle (translation: “my mother is crazy”), starring Fanny Ardent, is due to be released later this year.
In Association with: Cohen Media Group, TF1 Studio, Women In Film
Labels: COLCOA Classics
