Catherine Breillat

Sex, filmed from the side of the woman having it, and rarely made comfortable. On holiday in Fat Girl, fifteen-year-old Elena is pursued by an Italian student while her twelve-year-old sister Anaïs is made to watch in silence. Romance follows a schoolteacher whose boyfriend refuses to touch her. In Sex Is Comedy, drawn from Breillat's own shoots, a director tries to film a sex scene between two actors who loathe each other.

Signature

• Girls and women narrating their own desire (Fat Girl, Romance, Anatomy of Hell).
• Fairy tales reread for their violence (Bluebeard, The Sleeping Beauty).
• Films about her own life, including a con man who preyed on her after a stroke (Abuse of Weakness).
• Explicit scenes, sometimes with Rocco Siffredi (Romance, Anatomy of Hell).