Long reduced to her icy blond hair, Catherine Deneuve has emancipated herself from fantasies and clichés through daring career choices. Using archive footage, film extracts and interviews, we take a fascinating look back at her cinematic life, narrated by her own voice and those of great filmmakers.

Her image as an impassive blonde, mythologized by Luis Buñuel’s sultry Belle de jour, has long clung to her skin. Some directors have played on this fantasy, while others, such as François Truffaut, have sought to circumvent it. Catherine Deneuve, on the other hand, has freed herself from it, pursuing her career according to her instincts, her encounters and her passion for cinema. Over the decades, she has explored all registers, between earthy comedies (Jean-Paul Rappeneau’s La vie de château, François Ozon’s Potiche…) and forays into demanding universes (Manoel de Oliveira and Raúl Ruiz, among others), revealing new facets of her acting. Constantly in search of renewal, she never flinches, whether she’s playing herself and confronting devastated Lebanon in Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige’s Je veux voir, or donning Bernadette Chirac’s suit in a biopic by Léa Domenach, in cinemas on October 4.

Chemins de traverse
Sweeping through Catherine Deneuve’s impressive career, Claire Laborey brings together numerous film extracts, archive interviews with the star and those who have directed her, as well as fascinating interviews with today’s filmmakers: André Téchiné, Arnaud Desplechin, Benoît Jacquot, Nicole Garcia, Hirokazu Kore-eda, François Ozon…, along with cinematographer Julien Hirsch, costume designer Catherine Leterrier and sound engineer Brigitte Taillandier. From her beginnings “a little by chance” to her recent projects, from her admiration for Marilyn Monroe to her way of being on the set, this inspired portrait embraces the evolution of an iconic actress who continues to take the high road, guided by her insatiable love of cinema.