
A Life Like Any Other
Une vie comme une autre
Faustine Cros
International Competition 2022
Documentary Film
Belgium,
France
2022
68 minutes
French
subtitles: 
English
Over many years, the director’s father filmed his family life almost obsessively. His daughter’s birth, his son’s first steps, and always Valérie, the young mother. An impressive fund of material which their now grown-up daughter Faustine appropriates to tell quite a different story: that of a woman who sees her role as a mother and its demands take away her freedom step by step.
In the here and now, the director observes her parents in the big empty house in the country: her hyperactive father who is constantly tinkering with something, and her chain-smoking mother who sits at the kitchen table and whose sharp mind can only be surmised from her eyes. What happened? What happened to the energetic and independent young make-up artist? The one who admires witches and wants to take a trip around the world. The one who could easily earn her own living but still gives up her job. “The gaze is important”, the now 60-year-old Valérie tells her daughter once while applying make-up. Yes, the gaze is important. And with her film, director Faustine Cros counters the gaze directed at her mother over all those years with a new narrative.
Credits
Faustine Cros
Julie Freres
Camille Laemlé
Sound Image Culture
Centre de l'Audiovisuel à Bruxelles (CBA)
RTBF
Anna Berthollet
Faustine Cros
Jean-Louis Cros
Faustine Cros
Cédric Zoenen
Ferdinand Cros
Faustine Cros
Winner of
Prize of the Interreligious Jury,
Silver Dove (International Competition)