As part of this summer’s stellar season, the TIFF Cinematheque presents their first-ever retrospective of the work of Catherine Breillat. The program is called Catherine Breillat’s Anatomies of Desire, and the title couldn’t be more apt. Polarizing and always controversial, Breillat’s films have consistently launched unforgiving, frank, and at times quite disturbing inquiries into female sexuality and the possibilities of representing sex in the cinema (where is that fine line between art and porn, anyway? Does it even matter?)

My own introduction to Breillat’s work came in 2001 when the controversy over her film À ma soeur (Fat Girl) being banned in Ontario was raging. After seeing such staples as Romance (1999), which Film Comment calls “the most sexually explicit film ever made”, and more recently Une vieille maîtresse (The Last Mistress) (2007), which features the dark, vicious, and hypnotizing Asia Argento in the title role, I was convinced that there was no other filmmaker like Breillat. Not only is her formal approach a daring one, but the subject matter she treats is one which seems to be easily ignored by both filmmakers and the public at large.

Fourteen of Breillat’s finest and most incisive films will be shown from July 22 to August 15 at the Cinematheque’s theatre, Jackman Hall, in the Art Gallery of Ontario (317 Dundas Street West). Check the schedule for specific dates and times. Students, don’t forget to bring your ID to enjoy cheap student ticket prices!