EXCLUSIVE: Gaumont will kick off sales at the Cannes market for Lauriane Escaffre and Yvo Muller’s Women On Trial (L’Affaire Marie-Claire), which will world premiere in the festival’s Special Screenings section.
Charlotte Gainsbourg stars as influential Tunisian-French lawyer and activist Gisele Halimi in a story centred on the landmark 1972 “Procès de Bobigny” trial of 16-year-old Marie-Claire Chevalier, whose illegal abortion paved the way for France to later decriminalise the procedure.
Saül Benchetrit plays Chevalier, Cecile de France stars as her mother, Michele Chevalier, and Gregory Gadebois plays Halimi’s husband Claude Faux. The film focuses on all of the women who came together to testify and support Chevalier at the highly publicised trial and risked their reputations in order to change French law.
It is produced by the prolific French company Quad. Gaumont is a co-producer alongside France 3 Cinema and is handling French distribution and international sales.
Gaumont will release the film theatrically in France on November 4.
Women On Trial is directing duo Escaffre and Muller’s follow-up to their 2022 romantic comedy Maria Into Life, which starred Karin Viard.
The real Halimi died in 2020 after a long career packed with precedent-setting cases that helped shift French laws and attitudes about abortion and women’s rights, and after a lifelong mission to fight against injustices, in particular those against women in countries including Tunisia and Algeria.
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