Director in person!

Catherine Breillat follows up her beguiling Blue Beard (NYFF 2009) with another boldly revisionist fairy tale based on the work of Charles Perrault. Cursed by a bitter old hag to prick her finger and die on her 16th birthday, the young princess Anastasia has her sentence reduced by a trio of kindlier witches, instead falling into a deep sleep and remaining there for the next 100 years. While in slumber, Anastasia comes of age through a series of vivid dreams (filled with charming princes, dwarves, gypsies and magical creatures). Then she reawakens a fully formed adolescent, and finds that in real life happy endings are more elusive than in our fantasies. Beautifully designed by Francois-Renaud Labarthe and photographed by the great Denis Lenoir (Carlos), this constantly surprising, thought-provoking investigation of the female psyche reaffirms Breillat as one of the most inventive and risk-taking of contemporary French auteurs.

A Strand Releasing release.