CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA Special Screenings

Responding to a challenge from Juliette Binoche to write a deeply complex female role, renowned French auteur Olivier Assayas has crafted an emotionally rich and evocatively meta-textual rumination on art, acting and aging. Binoche takes center stage as Maria, a famous actor whose life changed 20 years earlier when she experienced breakout stage success in the role of a sultry ingénue caught in a torrid affair with an older woman. She reluctantly agrees to mount the play once more, but this time around, Maria is given the less glamorous part of the jilted middle-aged lover, with her previous role played by a rising young starlet with a bad-girl image (Chloe Grace Moretz). As Maria retreats to the Swiss Alps with her loyal assistant (Kristen Stewart) to prepare for the play, a psychological examination into the psyche of both women ensues.