Mélisa Godet’s debut film will be at the cinema from 29 October. A profound story that does not transform violence into spectacle and manages to find keys to lightness
We smile, we get excited, we get angry. La Maison des Femmes – The house of women Of Melisa Godet it is yet another demonstration of how French cinema knows how to talk about social issues with special sincerity and freshness. From the October 29th in Italian cinemas distributed by Satine Film, takes us inside a one-of-a-kind health care and support center: a point of reference for all issues involving female experience – such as pregnancy and motherhood – but also, and above all, a safe haven where women of all ages can receive treatment physical and psychological woundsfrom sexual violence to family abuse to genital mutilation.
The team led by Diane (played by Karin Viard) fights every day to accompany women on their journey of rebirth, through a multidisciplinary approach. In the pool there are doctors, psychologists, lawyers, legal experts, police officers, artists… There are many scars, in the soul and in the bodies, just as much the truth, and yet La Maison des Femmes – The house of women it is thoughtful lightness. This is also thanks to the disenchanted passion of the staff and the narrative windows that the director – who is also a screenwriter together with Catherine Paillé – opens onto their lives. There is the resolute midwife Manon (Laetitia Dosch), and then the young intern Inés (Oulaya Amamra), there is the energetic nurse Awa (Eye Haidara)… They are all so certain that they are in the only place they would like to be.
“Even though today it feels like we’re emptying the ocean with a teaspoon, I’m extremely proud to do it with you,” Diane tells her staff. Choral film that indulges in a liberating dance to the tune of Prière païenne by Céline Diondespite the delicate topic addressed, knows how to instill hope.
La Maison des Femmes – The house of women is inspired by Center for Women of Saint-Denis created by gynecologist and obstetrician Ghada Hatem. «I immediately chose to approach the film from the perspective of the operators who manage this place», said Mélisa Godet, on her first film. With a basic certainty: «I had a conviction: I wouldn’t have filmed any scenes of violence. That wasn’t the direction I wanted to take. I didn’t want to make that violence a material of aesthetic expression.”
Violence is certainly present, but it is transmitted through the words of the women treated, portrayed as thinking and active subjects, architects of their own reconstruction, and not as objects of violence inflicted on them by someone else. «It was an essential prerequisite in the screenplay», specifies the director.
In this exclusive video an excerpt from La Maison des Femmes – The house of women:
