Fabienne Berthaud’s Lily Sometimes premiered, and was the closing film of the Directors Fortnight, at the 2010 Cannes International Film Festival where it was awarded the Art Cinema award amidst great acclaim from critics and audiences alike. The film stars Diane Kruger and Ludivine Sagnier as very different sisters with a strained relationship after their mother’s death.

Lily (Sagnier) is fundamentally different, somehow special and unfortunately somewhat socially inept. She lives in harmony with nature in a bizarre fantasy world where she does exactly what she wants. Lily resides with her mother in the parental home they share in the countryside. The death of her mother brings a caesura to their pastoral existence.

Previously living in Paris, Lily’s married sister Clara (Kruger) now feels obliged to return to the country home and take care of her younger sister. But Clara soon begins to sing to another tune. While under Lily’s freedom-loving influence, Clara gradually gets a taste for the autonomy presented to her by her sister. She begins to question her formalised life, which presents a fundamental challenge to her marriage.

Lily Sometimes was the closing night film of the Director’s Fortnight at Cannes in 2010 and the following day picked up the prestigious Art Cinema Award for Best Film in the Director’s Fortnight.

Jason O’Mahony, Dublin International Film Festival

Presented in cooperation with the Embassy of France in Ireland