FICX focuses on the audacious cinema of director Patricia Mazuy

Gijón/Xixón International Film Festival and Márgenes Festival are dedicating a spotlight to Patricia Mazuy (Dijon, France, 1960), undoubtedly one of the most singular figures in French cinema today, whose filmography assimilates classical cinema with transgressive content.

Director and screenwriter, she began her career in film as an editor in Los Angeles with the help of Agnès Varda, who lent her the editing room where she edited Mur murs with Sabine Mamou in the evenings. With the author of Sans toit ni loi, Mazuy shares her love for freedom in film, although the coordinates in which the filmmaker, who will visit Gijón/Xixón in November, moves are different.

Her successful debut, Peaux de vaches (1989), with the Dardenne brothers as co-producers, earned her a César nomination. This was followed by Saint-Cyr (2000), Sport de filles (2011), Paul Sánchez est revenu! (2018) and Bowling Saturne (2022), which will have its Spanish premiere at FICX following its appearance at Locarno.

Since her first film, Mazuy's cinema has been characterised by an aesthetic independence within the trends of contemporary French filmmaking. Her approach gives her a unique identity in today's European cinema, offering narratives without comfort zones, with characters on the edge in continuous confrontation.

Mazuy is at ease when dealing with difficult subjects: she does not shy away from them, as she demonstrates in her latest film, Bowling Saturne, which will have its national premiere in Gijón/Xixón. A noir that deals with violence in a non-complacent way and offers the spectator drastic images of human fury.

Patricia Mazuy won a prize at Cannes for Saint-Cyr, starring Isabelle Huppert and Jean-Pierre Kalfon, with music by John Cale, which also won the Jean Vigo prize. In her next feature, the comedy Sport de filles, she directed Marina Hands, Bruno Ganz and Josiane Balasko. At Locarno, she won the Bronze Leopard for Travolta et moi, one of the episodes of the Arte series Tous les garçons et les filles de leur âge..., in which she shared directing duties with Olivier Assayas, Claire Denis and André Téchiné, among other filmmakers.

The focus on Patricia Mazuy is a unique opportunity to approach a transgressive filmography that, to date, has had very little visibility outside France.