Mademoiselle

Mademoiselle is a 1966 French-British black-and-white psychological thriller directed by Tony Richardson, adapted by Marguerite Duras from a text by Jean Genet. Jeanne Moreau plays a refined Parisian schoolteacher who has settled in a small French village, where she appears to be the very model of respectability. Behind that composed facade, however, she conceals a psychopathic nature, and a series of disturbing events begins to unsettle the quiet rural community around her. The film competed for the Palme d'Or at the 1966 Cannes Film Festival and opened in French cinemas on 3 June 1966. It earned a BAFTA Award for Jocelyn Rickards' costume design. At its premiere the film divided critics sharply, and the controversy pushed it into relative obscurity for years. It has since been reappraised as an underrated and misunderstood masterwork, with Moreau's chilling central performance now counted among the great female performances in cinema history.