French writer-director and actress Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet has been making a name for herself as a rising voice exploring complex female stories. Her feature directorial debut, Anaïs in Love, follows a 30-year-old broke woman who has an affair with Daniel, who then decides he doesn’t want to go on like this, leading Anaïs to develop a fascination with Daniel’s partner, Emilie. Now, Bourgeois-Tacquet is back with A Woman’s Life (La vie d’une femme), starring Léa Drucker (Last Summer, Close), which world premieres in the Cannes Film Festival competition lineup on Wednesday evening.

Produced by David Thion (Anatomy of a Fall) and written and directed by Bourgeois-Tacquet, the film follows 55-year-old surgeon Gabrielle, whose carefully constructed life and career are shaken up by an encounter with a young novelist who watches her as part of her work on a book that she is writing. Mélanie Thierry and Charles Berling also star in the movie, for which Be for Films is handling international sales.

“Gabrielle, 55, gives herself to her work, body and soul,” reads a synopsis for A Woman’s Life. “As a surgeon and head of the hospital department, she is constantly on the move, stretched thin by the weight of responsibility. There is little time left for her private life: a loving husband and a mother who depends on her care. Yet this is the life she wanted, the life she chose. When a novelist comes to observe her at work for a book, her balance begins to shift. How far is she willing to go to shake what she has built?”

THR can now premiere an exclusive clip from the film, featuring the first meeting of the women portrayed by Drucker and Thierry. So, brace yourself for an appetizer of sorts for what to expect from the two main characters and their dynamic – and talk of a nasty hunting accident. Watch the exclusive clip from A Woman’s Life below.

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