Special anniversary screening of the romantic thriller by Jacques Audiard, which opened the 1st annual Sacramento French Film Festival!

Carla Bhem (Emmanuelle Devos) has worked as a secretary for a property development company for a long time. Her job includes a bit of everything. She is the first to arrive in the morning and the last out at night. Her reward? To be paid like a serf, treated like mud and ordered around like a dog. Carla has had enough. But what hope is there for a 35-year-old woman with a so-so physique and a hearing aid in both ears? Her solution may be Paul Angeli (Vincent Cassel), the new handsome trainee she has hired, who just happens to be fresh out of jail. She will teach him good manners and he will teach her bad ones.

On Friday, July 12, 2002, the 1st Sacramento French Film Festival opened with a sold out screening of Read My Lips, an unusual thriller and love story directed by newcomer Jacques Audiard. Joe Baltake, the Sacramento Bee movie critic at the time, wrote: "One of the best film of the year, Audiard's third film is a Hitchcockian turn, full of subtleties and topped with two excellent performances."

This was Audiard's third feature film. Since then, he went on to become one of France's most distinguished filmmakers and we are proud to have accompanied his career. In 2005, the SFFF closed with Audiard's fourth film, The Beat That My Heart Skipped, another unusual thriller that won your hearts and the SFFF Audience Award. Last year, Audiard was awarded the coveted Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival for his latest film, the immigration drama Dheepan, which we are very happy to present this year, as well!

The stars of Read My Lips also went on to have successful careers and, since 2002, they've often been part of our lineups. You've seen Emmanuelle Devos last year in The Chef's Wife, and in In the Beginning (SFFF 2010) and Kings and Queen (SFFF 2005). And Vincent Cassel, the son of beloved actor Jean-Pierre Cassel, has appeared in One Wild Moment (Mini Fall Fest 2015), Hate and Irreversible (both SFFF 2006). You can also enjoy his performance, fifteen years later, in My King, playing on the second weekend at this year's SFFF. Cassel is no stranger to English-language cinema, either, having starred in Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan, David Cronenberg’s Eastern Promises and A Dangerous Method, and Steven Soderbergh's Ocean's series.

Shown with À Rebours (Rewind) by Frédéric Mermoud