FRANCE

1989 – 35mm – color – 84’

Direction: Olivier Assayas

Screenplay: Olivier Assayas

Cinematography: Denis Lenoir

Editing: Luc Barnier

Set design: François-Renaud Labarthe

Music: Jorge Arriagada

Costumes: Françoise Clavel

Cast: Clotilde de Bayser, Michel Feller , Marie Matheron, Jean-Philippe Écoffey, Gérard Blain, Anouk Grinberg, Nathalie Richard

Producers: Paulo Branco, Jean-Claude Fleury

Production: Gemini Films, G.P.F.I.

SYNOPSIS

Natalia is pregnant with the baby of her boyfriend, Stéphane, but he won’t take responsibility and leaves home. Despite being bitterly reproached by his father, he goes straight ahead and starts dating Sabine, a theatre set designer with a pretty unstable character. Sabine, in turn, has just been left by Bruno, an actor, who wants nothing more to do with her. As Natalia falls into depression, Sabine can’t get over Bruno and begins pestering him with her love declarations. Stéphane, meanwhile, begins to show an unexpected interest in his son, to whom Natalia has given birth on her own.

CRITICAL NOTE

“Winter’s child is first of all a cruel, brutal game, the game of love, desire and passion, with its misinterpretations, miscalculations, failures… There are Natalia, the mother, Sabine, the beloved, Bruno, the tall, dark and handsome man. And then there is Stéphane. He knows that there are only two roles for him to play in that game, the father or the son. Stéphane, who is no longer really a son and not yet a father, whose undecided status is enough to create chaos. (…) The strength of Winter’s child lies not just in its elegance and the lightness with which Assayas follows the carousel of love with its breaks, returns, interruptions, plays, but more in the faith in Cinema that the film shows.” (Hervé Leroux, Catalogo Berlinale Forum 1989)