NYFF51 Live: agnès b. (My Name is Hmmm…)

Free and open to the public on a first come, first served basis!

Fashion designer, film producer, and now director, join agnes b. in a conversation about her directorial debut Je m’appelle Hmmm… Moderated by Amy Taubin.

The first feature by fashion designer and film lover agnès b. (signed “Agnès Troublé”) is a deeply personal, incandescent work that filters childhood trauma through the poetry of the road. Céline (Lou-Lélia Demerliac) is an 11-year old who holds her family together as she bears the weight of sexual abuse by her unemployed father (Jacques Bonnaffé) while her mother (Sylvie Testud) earns money as a waitress. During a school trip to the seaside, she runs away and hides out in the cab of a freight truck driven by a sweet middle-aged man from Scotland (artist Douglas Gordon) who is in the midst of dealing with his own trauma. The film, alive to the beauty of every face and every landscape, casts a magic spell and stays true to the lives of its characters. My Name Is Hmmm… is a movie by a passionate cinephile who has fully absorbed her inspirations, from the cinema of her own country to the films of John Cassavetes.