Diane Kurys

Carrie Tarr's analysis of the cinema of Diane Kurys is a full-length study of this director, whose delightfully unsentimental reconstructions of the lives of girls and women in post-war France have established her as a distinctive presence in contemporary French film-making. Carrie Tarr traces Kury's trajectory from actress to author-director producer of her own films in a career that already spans two decades, and situates her work within debates on women's film-making and female authorship. The book includes detailed readings of each of Kurys' films to date, from the evocation of growing up in the 1960s in "Diabolo menthe" to the dilemmas facing the woman artist of today in "A la folie". The conclusion draws together Kurys' thematic preoccupations and visual style in order to identify her authorial signature, and illuminates the extent to which she has been able to create a space for female subjectivity within the constraints of contemporary French culture.