French Women Filmmakers • Monia Chokri

Babysitter (Monia Chokri, 2022, 87 min, Canada)

“A thrillingly audacious takedown of casual misogyny, Monia Chokri’s pastel-hued and retro-styled sophomore feature also takes some pot shots at the cult of modern motherhood.” -MUBI

A cliché in detective fiction, “look for the woman” means to look for the source of mayhem to solve the mystery… This is exactly what we’ve done – look for la femme behind the camera to bring you the most memorable films made by women from France and beyond.

Middle-aged sexist Cédric is suspended from work after drunkenly kissing a female reporter on live TV. Stuck at home with his long-suffering girlfriend, Nadine and their incessantly crying baby, Cédric teams up with his brother, Jean-Michel, to co-author a book apologizing for their past misogyny. Enter Amy : a mysterious and provocative young babysitter who, like a Mary Poppins of the libido, forces the trio to confront their sexual anxieties while turning their lives upside down. - Lost in Frenchlation

With a complimentary glass of Bourgogne Louis Jadot. Enter a chance to win Sofitel’s Le Bar gift certificate at this screening!

Post-screening discussion with Nick Davis, Associate Professor of English and Gender Studies at Northwestern University. Series curated by Nick Davis, Aimée Laberge and Paprika Bonnin-Occansey

* Entrée Libre for students with ID on-site/.edu addresses online. High school, college or university.

About Monia Chokri

Monia Chokri (born 27 June 1982 in Québec) is a Canadian actress and film director. She began her acting career after she completed her studies at Montreal’s Conservatory of Dramatic Arts in 2005. In addition to having played in several theater productions in Montreal, she has received notable roles in films presented at the Cannes Film Festival directed by Québécois filmmakers who are better known outside of Canada, namely Denys Arcand and Xavier Dolan. The quality of her acting has been noted by critics, notably in Les Inrockuptibles and Le Monde.

At the end of 2010, the readers of Les Inrockuptibles named her #4 on their list of the top actresses of the year for her performance in Heartbeats (Xavier Dolan, 2010). Her debut as a director, the short film An Extraordinary Person (Quelqu’un d’extraordinaire), was released in 2013 and won the Prix Jutra for Best Short Film at the 16th Jutra Awards. Her feature debut, A Brother’s Love (La femme de mon frère), premiered at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. Babysitter, in which she was both the director and an actor, was released in 2022. She received a Canadian Screen Award nomination for Best Lead Performance in a Film at the 11th Canadian Screen Awards in 2023. - Wikipedia

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