

Marcelline is an actress. Forty, single and childless, she begins rehearsals for Turgenev’s A Month in the Country. Denis, the director, admires her greatly and promises he’ll make her happy on stage — she will shine. But things don’t go to plan.
Acting
Bruni Tedeschi directs herself through exquisite, painful vulnerability.
Direction
Meta-theatrical layers that collapse beautifully into raw confession.
Writing
Turgenev dialogues bleeding into modern Parisian angst.

Director
Valeria Bruni Tedeschi
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Bruni Tedeschi cast her own mother, Marisa Borini, to play Marcelline's mother, layering genuine family tension into scenes about inherited disappointment.
The film speaks to a specifically French cultural anxiety around the 'femme de quarante ans' — the 40-year-old woman who has failed to secure the traditional markers of success.