Olivia

Olivia comes from England and is enrolled for a year at a girls' boarding school outside Paris. The school is run by two women: Mademoiselle Julie and Mademoiselle Cara. The pupils are split in two; everyone is attached to one of them. Olivia becomes infatuated with Julie. At the same time she watches the last months of the relationship between the two headmistresses, which is both a love and a struggle for power, and the school turns around it. Jacqueline Audry's film adapts Dorothy Bussy's novel. The narrative takes desire between women as an open subject and does not present it as a deviation, an extremely unusual choice for French cinema of the period. Edwige Feuillère plays Julie, Simone Simon plays Cara, and Marie-Claire Olivia plays Olivia. The film was censored in some countries. Who it's for: Viewers who like classic French cinema, queer film history, and boarding school narratives. Who it's not for: The narrative is slow and theatrical. The interest between an adult woman and her pupil is also uncomfortable by present-day eyes.