Screening at Rochester International Film Festival:
Friday, April 17, 7:00pm
A Belgian free spirit recalls a winsome cross-cultural romance with her Japanese French-language student in this charming free adaptation of prolific author Amelie Nothomb’s semi-autobiographical novel. Mixing playfulness and intellect, the film is also a coming-of-age story, a portrait of the artist as a young woman who grows to understand what she wants and what is most important. Quirkily costumed to look like a cross between the real-life Nothomb and cinema’s Amelie Poulain, gamine Pauline Etienne plays Amelie, who was born in Japan and, more than anything, wants to be Japanese. Complications, misunderstandings and double meanings in both French and Japanese provide humor and fodder for thought throughout the film.
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