Annie Ernaux, visiting her hometown for a signing to mark her new release, is suddenly struck by memories of her past. In the summer of 1958, eighteenyear- old Annie (Tess Barthélemy) joins a summer camp as a counselor to young children. As feelings grow tangled among the counselors, Annie hopes her relationship with H (Victor Bonnel) will blossom into romance. But H, repeatedly invoking his own fiancée, treats her as nothing more than a diversion. Director Judith Godreche, who examined sexual assault and the structural issues beneath it in her short film Moi aussi, broadens that same inquiry here by way of Annie Ernaux’s novel A Girl’s Story. In the film, a middle-aged Annie Ernaux looks back on her teenage years as a third-person observer of herself. What stands out is how the film addresses gendered power dynamics and the violence embedded within them, while still portraying its heroine as an agent of her own story rather than an object. Tess Barthelemy, the director’s own daughter, delivers a persuasive performance charting the transformation of a once dreamy, wide-eyed Annie. The film delicately weaves together the growth of a girl starved for love and friendship with the trajectory by which that period would later become the making of a writer.
Judith Godrèche is a French actor, film director, and screenwriter who made her debut in the 1981 film Next Summer and has since delivered a wide range of performances across film, television, and theater, earning several César Award nominations. Having worked with an array of directors from around the world — including Olivier Assayas, François Ozon, and Park Chan-wook — Godrèche made her feature directorial debut with Toutes les filles pleurent (2010), and wrote and directed the six-part series Icon of French Cinema (2023). Her short film Moi aussi (2024) screened at the opening of Cannes Un Certain Regard section. Her second feature, A Girl’s Story, was invited to Un Certain Regard at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival.
From Busan International Film Festival 2026, No. 31
