Pardonnez-moi

Pardonnez-moi establishes an original, energetic new voice in French cinema in the form of Maïwenn Le Besco, perhaps best known to Adelaide audiences as the female lead in Alexandre Aja’s High Tension (AFF05). Like Maïwenn, her protagonist Violette is a former child actor. We now discover her doing a stage show to workshop her bitterness towards her parents. Finding that she is pregnant, she swaps her shrink for a videocamera, and decides to make a film about herself for the child she is bearing. This can only end in tears. Soon there is birthday cake and psycho-drama all over the walls. Armed with her camera and a life-sized Bratz doll packed with imitation bodily fluids, she sets off to have it out with her father. Get ready for a heady mix of improvisation, autobiography, and dirty family laundry.

I wanted the image to be everything but prepared. As improvisation was the rule, I wanted everything to be in perpetual movement. That's why I gave little direction to my cinematographer. I wanted her to be often surprised, so much so that sometimes she would not know who to film. I wanted to create this kind of instability. Same for the crew, I had everything in my head but kept it, as much as possible, for myself.

Maïwenn Le Besco