17/05/2026 - CANNES 2026: Judith Godrèche delivers a sincere and heartfelt adaptation of Annie Ernaux’s book, bringing the girl of 1958 back to life through her eyes

Tess Barthelemy in A Girl's Story

Following Toutes les filles pleurent (2010), the autofictional series Icon of French Cinema (2023) and the short film Me Too (2024), Judith Godrèche returns with A Girl's Story, presented in the Un Certain Regard section of the 79th Cannes Film Festival. It would be an understatement to say that curiosity was high regarding this cinematic collaboration between the filmmaker — who has established herself as a leading voice in denouncing sexual violence against children and as a staunch advocate for feminist causes — and the work of Nobel Prize-winning author Annie Ernaux.

A Girl’s Story looks back on a pivotal year in the life of Annie (Tess Barthelemy), a 17-and-a-half-year-old girl (as she never tires of pointing out), eager to leave the family nest, but also to escape her humble circumstances and finally begin her real life — the one she knows she is destined for — by becoming a camp counsellor, a role promising both friendships and romantic encounters. But Annie’s desires and her thirst for emancipation are shattered by a brutal first sexual encounter, in which her consent is deliberately ignored. Determined to live the life she has dreamed of, she strives to reconcile the harsh reality — marked by sexual violence and psychological and physical humiliation — with an idealised narrative born of denial. While her mind stubbornly believes itself in control of the situation, her body materialises Annie's disappearance, her effacement in favour of a pre-written social role. From one summer to the next, the girl becoming a woman loses as many dreams as she does illusions, fighting on what are certainly unequal terms against male violence, but also against class contempt and what we now call slut-shaming (or the stigmatisation of women who desire), and will have to find the inner strength to carry out a form of reset so as not to succumb to a predetermined fate.

In A Girl's Story, published in 2016, Annie Ernaux looked back on the young woman she was almost 60 years earlier, revisiting her experiences to explore their darker aspects. In adapting this first-person narrative across the decades, Judith Godrèche offers her perspective as a director and writer in 2026, echoing the feelings of the girl from 1958. She focuses on recounting the various episodes of those few months, on following the vital energy of her actress (Tess Barthelemy, who is also her daughter), the way her body navigates the events, and how her liveliness and her will to live are constantly put to the test by the hostility towards women in the world around her. At the heart of her experience, but also more generally of Ernaux’s work, lies this challenge: how does one remain – or become – a subject when men’s violence turns you into an object? Without grasping the full extent of the struggle, Annie resists objectification, attempting to remain in control of her own story, even if it means refusing to see.

Tess Barthelemy convincingly embodies this sometimes brutal resilience, this tenacity that enables one to overcome adversity. Judith Godrèche depicts what her character does not put into words  — notably the sense of detachment that arises when her body is subjected to assault, yet she lacks the means to fully realise it. It is difficult to convey on screen the depth of a retrospective account, to make the girl of 1958 and the girl of 2016 coexist. The filmmaker makes the choice — less daring than the rest of her approach — to do so literally, opening and closing her narrative with the writer of today, thereby framing the chronicle of an initiation, that year of unfulfilled desires and a thirst for life, the vibrancy of which is undoubtedly the film’s strength.

A Girl’s Story was produced by Windy Production and Moana Films, in co-production with France 2 Cinéma and Umedia (Belgium). Paradise City Sales handles international sales.

(Translated from French)

Photogallery 16/05/2026: Cannes 2026 - A Girl’s Story

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Judith Godrèche, Tess Barthélémy, Valérie Dréville
© 2026 Fabrizio de Gennaro for Cineuropa - fadege.it, @fadege.it