cinematography
Claire Simon
editing
Luc Forveille

sound
Pierre Bompy
Jules Jasko
Nathalie Vidal
Clément Claude

production
Rosebud Productions
producer
Emmanuel Perreau
co-producer
Michel Klein
in collaboration with
France Télévisions
in association with
Les Films Hatari

world sales
Be for Film
www.beforfilms.com
sales@beforfilms.com

international press office
Viviana Andriani
RV Press
www.rv-press.com
viviana@rv-press.com

A major figure in contemporary feminism and the first Frenchwoman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, Annie Ernaux is seen by many as a source of individual and collective emancipation, blending the intimate with the universal. Filmmaker Claire Simon has devoted an original portrait to her, giving students and teachers a voice. How is Ernaux’s work taught in secondary schools and universities? How is it received, studied and learned? How do today’s French young people approach the writings of Ernaux? By placing her camera in French classrooms, Simon captures the living impact of Ernaux’s words: their awakening power, their ability to challenge one’s certainties and nurture new degrees of awareness by prompting students to reflect on their own teenage lives. Through this look at the process of transmission, Simon shows how the oeuvre of Ernaux, having taken its rightful place in world literature, continues to inspire young people in their quest for freedom and self-determination.

2025 Écrire la vie
Annie Ernaux racontée par des
lycéennes et des lycéens (doc)
2024 Apprendre (doc)
2023 Notre corps (doc)
2021 Vous ne désirez que moi
2019 Le village (doc)
2018 Premières solitudes (doc)
2016 Le bois dont les rêves sont faits
2016 Le concours (doc)
2013 Gare du Nord / Géographie humaine
2008 Les bureaux de Dieu (short)
2006 Ça brûle
2002 Mimi (doc)
2000 800 km de différence – Romance (doc)
1999 Ça, c’est vraiment toi (doc)
1997 Sinon, oui
1995 Coûte que coûte (doc)
1992 Récréations (doc, medium-length)
1991 Scènes de ménage (medium-length)
1989 Les patients (doc)

“Making a film about a writer, an author I’ve always loved and admired… It was a huge challenge! Especially as I’m not very good at the art of portraiture… When I saw Michelle Porte’s magnificent film on Annie Ernaux, I was blown away and felt incapable of doing it again. And why do it again? An author is all about texts, words, books… And that’s what carries us away. But cinema resists words, and many adaptations of novels totally eclipse the substance of the text. All that’s left is the story without the words. When I came up with the idea of making a film about the writer Annie Ernaux, I proposed going to see how her texts were received by the high-school students who have to study her (her books are studied for the high school baccalauréat), all over France and elsewhere in the world. I wanted to film and experience this relationship with Annie Ernaux’s texts with French high school students all over France. Whether they were students from the Paris suburbs, or from a renowned lycée, or a vocational high school… Each school and teacher opened the door to a different relationship with Ernaux’s texts. I was lucky enough to be able to go to French Guiana as well as mainland France to meet these young readers (voluntary or forced) of Annie Ernaux.” (Claire Simon)

The lives of women, their doubts, their strengths, and the common obstacles they face – this is what writer-director Claire Simon has been showing us since her first short films. Self-taught and then trained at the Ateliers Varan, she has carved her own path in what was initially a virtual desert, with stories in which women assume roles of importance, and even at the very top. Her filmography also focuses on young people and schools, from Récréations (1992) to Apprendre (2024), her film about an elementary school in the Paris suburbs, showing the extraordinary desire of children to learn and the incredible genius of teachers.