In Genève, bookseller and publisher Axel Thorpe catches willful, rich 16-year-old Sibylle Ashby shoplifting. She brags about her writing, so he challenges her to produce a book. She writes an erotic novel that Thorpe publishes anonymously, and it becomes a best seller. She also tries to capture the love of this 40-year-old publisher but he drops her for her older sister.
Direction
Kaplan's sly feminist lens on male literary gatekeeping.
Writing
A meta-textual game: who's really authoring whom?
Director
Nelly Kaplan
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Nelly Kaplan was Buñuel's protégée; this was her second feature and established her as France's rare female auteur tackling female sexuality head-on.
The film sparked censorship battles across Europe for its 'immoral' heroine—Kaplan argued Sibylle's real crime wasn't sex, but ambition.
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