Stella
International Showcase
(France, 2008, 103 mins)
In French with English subtitles
35mm
Directed By: Sylvie Verheyde
Producer: Bruno Berthemy
Screenwriter: Sylvie Verheyde
Cinematographer: Nicolas Gaurin
Editor: Christel Dewynter
Cast: Léora Barbara, Karole Rocher, Benjamin Biolay, Guillaume Depardieu
It’s 1977, and 11-year-old Stella Vlaminck is handed a lucky break when she’s randomly assigned to a prestigious secondary school in an affluent area of Paris. But the working-class Stella is more streetwise than booksmart, and she is shunned by her new classmates who view her cheap clothes and academic struggles with disdain. Meanwhile, her home life consists of poker, pinball, pop music, and an odd menagerie of damaged adults. Her parents run a rooming house and rowdy café frequented by ex-cons, drunkards, and prostitutes, where she witnesses nightly barroom brawls and the never-ending drama of her romantically-troubled parents.
Stella seems destined to follow in the footsteps of her barmaid mother until she befriends Gladys, the daughter of Argentine-Jewish intellectuals, who exposes her to literature and a whole new world of possibilities.
Aided by a superb cast, especially young Leora Barbara, who gives a low-key, assured performance in the titular role, writer-director Sylvie Verheyde’s semi-autobiographical film is a remarkable portrait of a young girl’s intellectual awakening.
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