Arts & Entertainment

Laurent says she was inspired by her daughter for The Mad Women’s Ball

Toronto, Canada, Sep 13 (EFE).- French actor and director Mélanie Laurent says the birth of her daughter Mila in 2019 inspired her to make The Mad Women’s Ball, a “feminist” film that premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).

Laurent plays Geneviéve, a nurse who works at a French psychiatric center exclusively run by male doctors to treat women who suffer different issues or who simply do not adhere to 1900s society’s rules.

Her world and role at the center change as Eugénie Cléry, played by Lou de Laáge, a young upper-class nonconformist who suffers trances during which she communicates with the dead, is forcibly admitted by her family.

Laurent, a two-time César winner, told Efe that she was “obsessed” with making a historical movie. “That was a big desire and a big fantasy”.

Giving birth to her daughter back in 2019 made her consider the next movie she would make.

“Because I was moved to have a baby girl, I wanted to make a movie about something feminist,” she told Efe. “I hated the idea of making something feminist”.

“I just wanted to do a movie about (…) some strong and powerful and beautiful women,” she added.

It was then that a producer sent her the book “Le Ball des Folles” by the French writer Victoria Mas in what Laurent described as “magic”.

“That book had a very beautiful, cinematic structure. And she (the author) was talking about all these themes with so much beauty and without judgment.

“And I thought it was a beautiful subject and I felt extremely lucky to have that book into my hands,” she said.

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