My Friend Victoria
Description
An acute exploration of race and class, My Friend Victoria compactly follows its eponymous French African protagonist from childhood to young adulthood. The film begins with the orphan Victoria invited into the bourgeois home of Edouard, a white school chum, where she finds herself allured by the flat’s spaciousness and appurtenances and the family’s welcoming charms. Some years later, working in a record shop, she meets Edouard’s brother Tomas and they start dating. Thus begins her deeper connection with his family that continues over time and through a shifting set of personal circumstances. Civeyrac tells Victoria’s story in several key episodes from her life, and the result is a rich and multi-dimensional portrait of a woman who both struggles with and is attracted by assimilation into a world different from her own. Adapted from a Doris Lessing story and featuring terrific performances by several unknown actors, My Friend Victoria is a refreshing look at multicultural life in present-day Paris.
Jean-Paul Civeyrac graduated with a degree in philosophy and currently is a professor at the French film school La Fémis. He received the Jean Vigo Prize in 2003 for All the Fine Promises, an adaptation of an Anne Wiazemsky novel. Regarding the initial impetus for My Friend Victoria he says, “This story would allow me to create a kind of photograph of what I see around me in Paris and France regarding the situation of foreigners.”
Trailer
//www.youtube.com/embed/tkQA2lwyBGcFilm Details
Language French
Original Language Title Mon amie Victoria
Year 2014
Runtime 95
Country France
Director Jean-Paul Civeyrac
Producer Philippe Martin
Writer Jean-Paul Civeyrac
Editor Louise Narboni
Cinematographer David Chambille
Cast Guslagie Malanga, Nadia Moussa, Catherine Mouchet, Pascal Greggory
Print Source Zeitgeist Films