27 November - 3 December 2009 
  

 Friday 20 November - Sunday 29 November 
TRIBUTE TO ROMY SCHNEIDER

Propelled into stardom as a young ‘Sissi’, Romy Schneider became one of Europe’s most popular and critically-acclaimed actresses. Initially identified only by her role as the young and naïve Austrian Empress, she managed to reinvent herself when she left Austria and Germany behind and moved to France. Here she made a name for herself as the sensuous, self-confident yet often tragic female lead, playing prostitutes, murderesses, femme fatales or political activists. In these roles she would be playful, affectionate and seductive in one moment and vulnerable, desperate or weary the next, expressing it all with the subtlest change in her iconic smooth face. The constant media attention made it tempting for her as well as her audiences to blur the lines between her private self and the roles she played.

Born in 1938 in Vienna, Schneider’s parents were the actors Magda Schneider and Wolf Albach Retty, popular film stars during the Third Reich. Schneider made her film debut at 15 years old in 1953, playing alongside her mother in White Lilacs Bloom Again (Wenn der weiße Flieder wieder blüht). Only two years later she landed Sissi, the role that turned her into a star overnight but also typecast her as a slightly rebellious yet sweet-natured teenager. Trying to break free from this image she escaped to Paris in 1958 to join Alain Delon whom she had met on the set of Christine. This was a decisive move for Schneider, even though it was much resented by the Austrian and German public. Through Delon she met Luchino Visconti, who put her on stage in Paris in 1960, and soon after gave her a new sensuous look in Boccaccio ‘70. Parts in French, British and American productions followed, notably in The Trial by Orson Welles (1962), The Cardinal by Otto Preminger (1963), and L’Enfer by Henri-Georges Clouzot (1964). After a quieter period during which she separated from Delon, married German actor Harry Meyen and gave birth to her son, her career picked up again with La Piscine (1968) by Jacques Deray, for which she once again paired up with Delon. This was quickly followed by Les Choses de la vie (1969), the first of five films with Claude Sautet and also the first with Michel Piccoli. Now fully embraced by French cinema and culture, over the next 12 years she worked continuously, directed by great cinema auteurs such as Claude Chabrol, Michel Deville, Joseph Losey, Claude Miller, Andrzej Zulawski and Bertrand Tavernier. She played alongside actors such as Jean-Louis Trintignant, Lino Ventura, Philippe Noiret or Yves Montand. By the time she died of heart failure in 1982 she had won the prestigious César award twice and had performed in more than 60 films.



  
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Schneider’s striking reappearance on screen in the soon-to-be-released Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Inferno, as well as a major exhibition at the Museum für Film und Fernsehen in Berlin opening on 4 December, provide an occasion to revisit some of Schneider’s most important films. Kicking off with La Mort en direct (1980) on 20 November at the Ciné lumière, the season meanders backwards in time and ends at the Curzon Soho with Sissi (1955) and a great Maidens in Uniform (1931/1958) double bill finale introduced by award-winning author Ali Smith.

The Romy Schneider season is a collaboration of Ciné lumière / Institut français, Club des Femmes, German Films, and the Goethe-Institut London. With media support from Cinémoi, Sky channel 343. We would like to thank the following institutions for their assistance: Austrian Cultural Forum London, Beta Film, Film Archiv Austria, Deutsches Film Institut, Museum für Film und Fernsehen.





     

 www.institut-francais.org.uk www.goethe.de/london www.clubdesfemmes.blogspot.com www.cinemoi.tv