In His Own Image

Q&A with Thierry de Peretti on March 12

An acclaimed actor and, in his capacity as director, a Rendez-Vous regular dating back to his first feature, 2013’s Apaches, Thierry de Peretti returns to that film’s Corsican setting in his latest, an ambitiously sweeping account of recent Corsican history that operates in an intimate register. Adapted from the acclaimed novel by Jérôme Ferrari, de Peretti’s retelling follows Antonia (Clara-Maria Laredo), an enigmatic but driven photographer, from the 1980s to the moment, bearing witness to her love affair with the increasingly radical activist Pascal (Louis Starace) as it intersects with the intricacies of the island’s often-violent fight for independence. Shooting in masterfully controlled long takes to evoke decades of turmoil, de Peretti conjures a vision of a woman who remains deeply and passionately engaged with the realities of her place and time, steadfastly refusing to separate the political from the personal.