SOME LIKE IT VEILED (Cherchez la femme)

Saturday, April 28 – 8:00 pm – Truffaut Theatre

West Coast Premiere | France | 2017 | Comedy | 88 min | In French with English subtitles

Directed by: Sou Abadi
Written by: Sou Abadi
Cinematography: Yves Angelo
Film Editing: Virginie Bruant
Original Score: Jérôme Rebotier
Produced by: Michaël Gentile (The Film), Mars Films, France 2 Cinéma
Cast: Felix Moati (Armand), Camelia Jordana (Leila), William Lebghil (Mahmoud), Anne Alvaro (Mitra)

International Sales: Playtime

Armand and Leila are in love. Both students at the prestigious Science Po University, they’re about to go to New York together to do an internship at the United Nations. But Leila’s older brother, Mahmoud, puts the kibosh on those plans the moment he returns from Yemen – complete with beard and prayer beads. He condemns his sister’s Western ways and, above all, forbids any contact with her boyfriend. So to get into the family apartment, Armand has a make-over, dons a burqa and pretends to be Leila’s female Islamic Studies tutor. Plenty of hijinks ensue. But the ruse works… a little too well! Some Like It Veiled takes the cross-dressing conceit of the Billy Wilder classic and brings it to the age of Islamic fundamentalism. The result: an extremely funny, politically-incorrect French farce.

Writer/director/editor Sou Abadi was born in Iran and moved to France with her family, at the age of 15, following the Iranian Revolution. She became politically active, studied science for a while, then developed a passion for the cinema. She began her career as an assistant editor, on features like Philippe Le Guay’s L’Année Juliette (1995) and Catherine Corsini’s The New Eve (1999), then worked her way up to editor, with a string of short film and documentary credits to her name. She crossed over into writing and directing with the documentary feature SOS Tehran (2002). Some Like It Veiled is the first narrative feature she has written or directed.

In Association with: Playtime, WIF

Labels: French NeWave 2.0