103 minutes – Drama
Language: French
Festival release date: February 3, 1986 (Berlin International Film Festival)
Production companies: National Film Board of Canada, Les Films Vision 4
Canadian distributor: NFB

The title character, Anne Trister (Albane Guilhe), is a young Swiss-Jewish artist. As the film opens she is burying her father and is deeply wrapped in grief. She leaves her boyfriend in Switzerland and travels to Québec where she looks up an old acquaintance, Alix (Louise Marleau), who is a 40-year-old child psychologist. Alix is a handsome woman with an elegant apartment, arrogant boyfriend, and beautiful clothes. She seems settled in her life, but through her work has developed an emotional bond with Sarah (Lucie Laurier), a rebellious child with an enormous need to be loved. Detached from the world around her, Anne takes over a vacant studio to paint a gigantic fresco and throws herself into a series of impulsive affairs. In this feminist, abstract drama – with an emphasis on the characters’ emotions rather than on plot – director Léa Pool delicately creates an overlapping world where Anne, Alix, and Sarah explore the many improbable forms of love and dependency.