Rebecca Zlotowski and cinema
 

Posted on 14.10.2025

Freedom, feminism, love: this trio of words sums up Rebecca Zlotowski's universe. The French director will give us insight into her love of cinema during an upcoming conversation with the public.

© Paul Grandsard

Rebecca Zlotowski is one of those people who wastes no time: after obtaining an agrégée in French literature and graduating from La Fémis in 2007 as a screenwriter, she skipped the short film stage and went straight into directing her first feature film, Dear Prudence (Belle Épine, 2010), with a luminous Léa Seydoux, who also starred in the filmmaker’s Grand Central (2013), followed by Planetarium (2016) and An Easy Girl(Une fille facile, 2019). All these examples point to Zlotowski’s inspiration - themes of youth and its accompanying adventures, somewhere between the sombre and the carefree. Her films, brimming with energy, convey a desire to tell unusual stories, show things from a different angle, and change perspectives. Through portraits of heroines who are both adventurous and secretive, always on a path to seek meaning and identity, Zlotowski unleashes the intense power of femininity and the freedom of bodies, shapes, and curves.

However, it is primarily the need for freedom that emerges from her work, paradoxically linked to the need to integrate into a group... or a family, as in Other People’s Children (Les Enfants des autres, 2022), her fifth feature and perhaps her most personal, in which she highlights the harsh and uncomfortable status of being a stepmother.

A committed filmmaker and member of the 50/50 Collective, which aims to promote gender equality in cinema, Zlotowski's films offer fresh ideas on the position of women in society, constantly challenging conventional wisdom and decrying sexual harassment, which is omnipresent and often insidious, manifesting itself in offhand remarks or gestures.

Despite reminding us of the ubiquitous nature of death, the filmmaker also celebrates life. Her latest feature film, A Private Life, premiering at the Lumière film festival, is all about it. Paradoxically, she proceeds with joy, by making a crime comedy: a psychiatrist (Jodie Foster) investigates, convinced that her patient, another vibrant young woman, has been murdered.

Fanny Bellocq

Masterclass
A conversation with Rebecca Zlotowski about her cinephilia (1h30)
On 14 October at 2.30pm at the Institut Lumière

Screening

Premiere

A Private Life by Rebecca Zlotowski (Vie privée, 2025, 1h43)

Comœdia Tue14 7.45pm