SYNOPSIS: Twelve-year-old Anaïs is fat. Her sister, fifteen-year-old Elena, is a beauty. While the girls are on vacation with their parents, Anaïs tags along as Elena explores the dreary seaside town. Elena meets Fernando, an Italian law student; he seduces her with promises of love, and the ever watchful Anaïs bears witness to the corruption of her sister’s innocence. Fat Girl is not only a portrayal of female adolescent sexuality and the complicated bond between siblings but also a shocking assertion by the always controversial Catherine Breillat that violent oppression exists at the core of male-female relations.
| Anaïs | Anaïs Reboux |
| Elena | Roxane Mesquida |
| Fernando | Libero de Rienzo |
| Mother | Arsinée Khanjian |
| Father | Romain Goupil |
| Fernando’s mother | Laura Betti |
| Director | Catherine Breillat |
| Screenplay | Catherine Breillat |
| Producer | Jean-François Lepetit |
| Coproducer | Conchita Airoldi |
| Cinematography | Yorgos Arvanitis |
| Film editor | Pascale Chavance |
| Production design | François Renaud Labarthe |
| Sound | Jean Minondo |
By October 18, 2004
French auteur cinema has increasingly been exploring themes of sex through scenarios whose explicitness verges on the pornographic. Along with Patrice Chéreau (Intimacy, 2001), Léos Carax (Pola . . . Read more »
By October 18, 2004
The original title of my film was always Fat Girl, but since I am French and not at all bilingual, it was for reasons more mysterious than an anglicism. Of course, the little girl was fat, but the . . . Read more »
October 23, 2009
Almost a decade ago, Catherine Breillat, one of contemporary cinema’s great provocateurs, gave us Fat Girl (À ma soeur!), a disturbing and graphic look at the pitfalls of adolescent sexuality from . . . Read more »
May 25, 2010
TIFF Cinematheque—formerly Cinematheque Ontario—is celebrating its twentieth anniversary this year, and has announced an impressively bursting summer schedule. From June to August, the cinematheque . . . Read more »
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