Based on the 2001 memoir by Annie Ernaux, the sophomore feature from director Audrey Diwan charts the harrowing journey of a young woman's struggle to get an abortion in the 1960s in France, when the procedure was still illegal in that country.
Anne (Anamaria Vartolomei in a star-making performance) is a gifted, working-class literature student whose life is upended after she discovers she’s pregnant. Now with her academic aspirations in jeopardy and her entire future about to be rewritten, the resourceful Anne is desperate to resolve the situation before it’s too late, even if it means risking time in prison to do so. Winner of the prestigious Golden Lion at the 2021 Venice Film Festival, Happening is a powerful, haunting reminder of a not-so-distant but frighteningly familiar era when a woman’s bodily autonomy was a foreign, punishable concept.
Director Biography
Originally trained as a journalist, Audrey Diwan became a screenwriter with numerous acclaimed films to her name. She made her directorial debut with Losing It (Mais vous êtes fous) (2019). Her most recent film is Happening (L'événement) (2021) which won the Golden Lion at 78th Venice International Film Festival.
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