NYFF51 Live: Isabelle Huppert (Abuse of Weakness)

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

Join the acclaimed French actress, Isabelle Huppert as she discusses her performance in Catherine Breillat’s film, Abuse of Weakness. Moderated by the New York Film Festival's Director of Programming, Kent Jones.

In 2004, at the age of 56, Catherine Breillat suffered a serious stroke. Her left side was initially paralyzed and after five months in the hospital she worked like a demon to walk again. Not long after, she prepared an adaptation of her novel Bad Love and decided to cast the notorious “swindler of the stars”, Christophe Rocancourt, fresh from a jail term for fraud. Over the next several months, Rocancourt took advantage of Breillat’s condition and stood by her side as she wrote him checks amounting to €650,000. She later took him to court, won her case, and chronicled the experience in a book that she has now adapted into a uniquely haunting film, with a bold, tough performance by Isabelle Huppert as the Breillat figure and French/Portuguese rapper Kool Shen as the con man.