Volatile Valentines Double Bill: 2 Catherine Breillat Films: ‘Virgin’ & Brief Crossing’ 12/02/12

A different kind of screening for Valentines week… A Volatile Valentines Double BillTwo Films by Catherine BreillatVirgin & Brief CrossingSunday 12th February 2.30pm £5Shacklewell Arms 71 Shacklewell Lane London E8 2EBTube: Dalston KingslandBuses: 2421496776 243From the director of Romance Fat Girl and Bluebeard and one of the most provocative and divisive filmmakers in European cinema Virgin and Brief Crossing explore sexuality romance gender conflict and the coming of age experience through the guise of the teen holiday romance. One is from the perspective of a teenage girl the other from that of an adolescent boy.Virgin is centred on Lili on a caravan holiday with her family still realising her powers over men. Intent on losing her virginity she latches onto an ageing playboy but soon finds their relationship is developing into something emotionally warped and troublingly complex.Brief Crossing charts the dalliance between Thomas and a troubled older English woman who he meets after boarding a ferry from La Havre to Portsmouth. Knowing that they are only on board together for a short time as they learn more about each other the shifts in balance that occur between the two threaten to disrupt their relationship.From one of the leading figures behind New French Extremity Breillat turns the myths of love inside out.“A master of psychosexual and Freudian mind-fuckery” – Little White Lies“So fresh and incisive so poignant yet funny that Virgin’s coming-of-age story unfolds as if it were the first of its kind” – Los Angeles Times“In Virgin Breillat has created a new kind of sex symbol: a voluptuous ingénue who is sharp-tongued quick-witted and independent of spirit to the bitter end” – Time Out“A complex and intellectually fertile examination of emotion and truth-telling in the areas of romance and seduction Brief Crossing is also one of Breillat’s most accessible works” – Eye For Film“While so many films revolve around what women want only Breillat and a few other woman film-makers are willing to acknowledge how contradictory and complex that answer might be” – Sight & Sound http://www.shacklewellarms.com/still…t-double-bill/“