“Antoinette dans Les Cévennes”
starring Laure Calamy

January – March 2022
Antoinette dans les Cévennes / My Donkey, My Lover and I (2020)

Director: Caroline Vignal
Screenplay: Caroline Vignal
Starring: Laure Calamy, Benjamin Lavernhe, Olivia Côte

Romantic Comedy – 1h 37m

Description: On an impulse, Paris schoolteacher Antoinette decides to follow her married lover Vladimir and his wife and daughter on a six-day summer hike along the trail described by Robert Louis Stevenson in his outdoor classic Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes. But Antoinette soon realizes this impromptu vacation is more than she bargained for: Vladimir is nowhere in sight, her romantic misadventure tickles all the gossips on the hiking circuit, and her traveling companion is a recalcitrant donkey called Patrick. Caroline Vignal’s second feature delightfully reinvigorates the old French film trope of the lovelorn vacationer with a gentle comic touch, the occasional slapstick flourish, unblemished landscapes, and a star-making turn by Laure Calamy, long a magnetic supporting actress in films by leading directors like Alain Guiraudie and Justine Triet. With perfect timing, a hint of eccentricity, and a beguiling emotional openness, Calamy manages to find both the pain and the humor in the universal experience of being alone when you had something—or someone—else in mind. Special mention must be made of Patrick the donkey, who delivers a winning performance as the stoic beast of burden who proves to be Antoinette’s occasional therapist and steadfast friend.

Links for the streaming film will be available and sent out a week before the film discussion.  Once you have received and put in your viewing code, you will have 5 days to watch the film.  Once you start the film, you will have 48 hours to finish it.

Discussion led by Sharon Straka on zoom.