Presented by the French Embassy in Ireland and the Alliance Française Network as part of First Fortnight Mental Health Festival 2025. 

The screening will be followed by a panel discussion on women’s mental health, the particular challenges women face, and the representation of these issues in the arts. The discussion will feature guest speakers Jenny Macdonald, theatre maker and facilitator, and Aurélie GODET, director of programming at Cork International Film Festival, and will be moderated by Maria Fleming, First Fortnight CEO.

Discover the poignant This Life of Mine (Ma Vie Ma Gueule), directed by the late Sophie Fillières and celebrated as the opening film at this year’s Cannes Directors’ Fortnight. A deeply moving exploration of identity, relationships, and the passage of time.

The story follows poet-turned-advertising copywriter Barbie Bichette, portrayed by the talented Agnès Jaoui, who finds herself separated from her husband, alienated from her adult children, and increasingly disenchanted with her job and therapist. An unexpected encounter with a stranger claiming to be an old friend forces Barbie to confront her reality in this amusing yet deeply moving chronicle of mental illness.

Awards

Cannes International Film Festival 202024 - Directors' Fortnight - 2024 Winner SACD Prize

Seville European Film Festival - Prix AAMMA Women in Focus

Post screening discussion - Speakers:

Jenny MacDonald is a theatre-maker whose practice encompasses writing / performing and directing / facilitating. Jenny used her time as Irish Hospice Foundation’s Writer in Residence to write a script for a new play, ‘The Tightrope Walker’, which explores the tension between the inherent loneliness of illness and the deep connections grief makes possible with others. Directed by Joe Salvatore of New York University’s Verbatim Performance Lab, ‘The Tightrope Walker’ was performed during Summer and Autumn 2023 at Dublin’s Civic Theatre Tallaght and Rua Red Arts Centre, among others. More recently, it was staged during Creative Brain Week 2024 at the Samuel Beckett Theatre, Trinity College Dublin. Writer Sylvia Thompson reviewed this performance for The Irish Times, saying: “The metaphor of illness as a journey is not new, but the writer and performer brings levels of personal insight, observation and generosity to the show that is rare to witness.” Her solo show ‘Enthroned’ premiered at First Fortnight Festival in 2016 and has since been presented by the New York International Fringe Festival, Town Hall Theatre, Galway, glór, the Civic, and First Fortnight online in 2020. In 2019, Jenny created SoloSIRENs, a theatre-making collective based at the Civic in Tallaght, Dublin. SoloSIRENs amplifies women’s voices onstage and beyond, and works to create a more just, sustainable, and caring way of making and presenting theatre. Jenny and SoloSIRENs were also part of Irish Hospice Foundation’s Compassionate Culture Network 2021 – 2022. ‘The Tightrope Walker’ features at First Fortnight 2025 and runs from 9th – 11th January at Smock Alley Theatre, Dublin.

Aurélie Godet is Director of Programming at the Cork International Film Festival, which she joined in April 2024.

From 2006 to 2010, Aurelie was deputy director of Unifrance’s New York office, where she contributed to the promotion of French cinema through North America. 

She was a member of the selection committee at the Locarno Film Festival from 2013 to 2018 and Berlinale from 2019 to 2024. She also worked as a programmer and moderator for French festivals 3 Continents and La Roche-sur-Yon in France, and contributed in launching the first international film festival in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Aurélie was a member of the director’s advisory committee at Arte France Cinema from 2012 to 2024.

In 2019, she co-founded The Red Balloon Alliance, a collective of film professionals aiming for a better work-life balance and helping festivals in the organization of daycare services for film professionals.

She also worked as a consultant for production companies and wrote for several publications, including Cahiers du Cinéma.