The screening on Thursday April 19 will be introduced by writer and programmer Savina Petkova.

Synopsis:

Papatakis’s debut unfolds in a country home where two domestic servants are cruelly exploited by the family they work for. When their abusive employers push them too far, it provokes a shocking and escallating rebellion. This allegorical portrait of the Algerian resistance was inspired by the real-life story of the Papin sisters, two maids who brutally murdered their employers in 1930s France - also the basis for Jean Genet’s influential 1947 play The Maids and Claude Chabrol’s 1995 psychological thriller La Cérémonie.

Curator’s note:

Boycotted by the selection committee of the 1963 Cannes Film Festival, Les Abysses gained the support of the Minister of Culture André Malraux, but generated a furious polemic and was defended by Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, André Breton, and Jean Genet.

The case of the two sisters has always been cited in French left-wing intellectual circles as a perfect example of the working-class struggle. According to Papatakis, the motivation for the sisters' murder is their living conditions; the humiliations they had to endure, exploited by their employers, who were ready to get rid of them once they no longer needed them.

Simone De Bouvoir:

"A magnificent and strange film in which reason descends into madness, paradise into the depths of hell, and where love is painted with the colours of hate. [...] Only the violence of the crime committed by the two heroines allows us to measure the atrocity of the invisible crime of which they themselves were victims

Content warning: 
The film Contains intense violence, psychological distress, and disturbing imagery related to class conflict and abuse.

Cast:
Francine Bergé, Colette Bergé, Paul Bonifas, Colette Régis