This Girl Is Mine

Colour, 35 mm
France, 2005, 90 min
IP – International premiere
Section: Official Selection - Competition

Synopsis

Twelve years ago someone stole Maud’s six-month-old baby from her pram. Maud has never managed to get over her terrible loss, her marriage broke up because of it and, since then, she has led an insecure, lonely and desperate life, focused solely on trying to find her lost baby. One day, however, she comes across 12-year-old Zita, who has the same birthmark on her stomach as her own daughter. Maud gets to know the girl and her mother Joana, and gradually discovers that the circumstances surrounding Zita’s birth are more than suspicious. During her pregnancy, Joana was heavily dependent on drugs and is only very vague about the birth and first few months of the girl’s life.

About the director

Virginie Wagon (b. 1965, France) worked for a long time in television, where she filmed TV reports and documentaries. In 1999 director Erick Zonca made a film based on a screenplay he wrote with Virginie Wagon, The Little Thief (Le petit voleur), screened a year later at the KV IFF in the Forum of Independents. She debuted as a director in 2000 with the film Le secret (again co-scripted with Zonca), which was screened at Cannes. She made the TV film Right Under My Eyes (Sous mes yeux) in 2002. This Girl Is Mine (2005) is her third film as a director.