“Through the existential meanderings of her neurotic characters and their series of tragicomic experiences, filmmaker Sophie Fillières plunges her viewers in the absurdity of contemporary daily life, explores the struggles of communicating with others, and manages to convey with cathartic humor that ‘being yourself’ is far from self-evident.”
— Agathe & Adam Bonitzer
Sophie Fillières (1964-2023) wrote and directed seven features and a handful of television projects during her too-short career. Kicking off the series is her final film, This Life of Mine (“One of the most imaginative and poignant movies of recent years.” – Richard Brody, The New Yorker), which was completed by her children Agathe and Adam Bonitzer after her death and premiered at Cannes 2024 (opening the Directors’ Fortnight section and winning its SACD Award, for the top French movie). The series that follows features a selection of her works, all currently without U.S. distribution. While she worked with many of France’s best actors, she remained slightly under the radar, quietly crafting sharp, bittersweet, sometimes absurdist women’s pictures.
As a teenager, Fillières discovered Godard’s Every Man for Himself and decided she wanted to pursue filmmaking herself. After graduating from Paris’s La Fémis film school, she went on to become an integral part of the Young French Cinema movement, a 1990s correlative to the 1960s New Wave. She also appeared in front of the camera twice for director Justine Triet, the multiple award winner who considers Fillières her “cinematic big sister.” Both share a reliance on comedy, drama, and elements of fantasy to relate intimate, sometimes uncomfortable portraits of the neuroses, joy, and pain of unglorified everyday life.
