2013 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Catherine Breillat’s Abuse of Weakness

#9. Catherine Breillat’s Abuse of Weakness

Gist: Abuse of Weakness will trace the autobiographical experience of Breillat with a notorious swindler. Isabelle Huppert stars as Maud, a film director recently paralyzed on one side, and she becomes entrenched in a destructive relationship with Vilko (rapper Kool Shen of NTM, in his screen debut), a man she wishes to cast in her next film. (Photo credit: Photo ©: Fabrizio Maltese)

Prediction: Certainly this is one film that contains a heady mix of intriguing elements. The much publicized swindling of Breillat resulted in the fallout of the film she had been putting together. The project would have been a follow-up to her 2007 film The Last Mistress, which played in the Main Competition at Cannes. Since then, she has focused on adapting several fairy tales for the big screen. But this latest project, which unites the infamous provocateur with Huppert and Kool Shen, has to be one of her most anticipated projects in quite some time. While this went into production last October, a Venice premiere seems more likely (her 2010 film The Sleeping Beauty was part of their Horizons section) but should it be selected for Cannes (and let’s not forget the ever increasing pressure to have more female directors included in the Main Comp) we are positive this would be competing for the Palme D’or.