The Diary of a Chambermaid
Le journal d'une femme de chambre
Romania’s premier provocateur returns, as razor-sharp as ever, with a finely wrought parable skewering the ‘good intentions’ of the bourgeoisie.
Gianina is a live-in nanny for a wealthy family in Bordeaux. One of the many Romanians who go to France seeking better economic conditions, she keeps the extravagant home shipshape, cooks the family their favourite Thai meals and cares for their occasionally bratty young son. In the evenings, Gianina divides her time between rehearsals for a play – specifically, a bawdy, experimental adaptation of the titular 1900 Octave Mirbeau novel previously brought to screen by Jean Renoir and Luis Buñuel – and video-calling her daughter, who jealously pines for her back in their home village.
Feted at Cannes, Radu Jude’s latest class satire operates in a realist, somewhat melancholic register closer to that of Kontinental ’25 (MIFF 2025) than to his anarchic Dracula. Anchored by excellent performances from Ana Dumitraşcu as Gianina and Mélanie Thierry and Vincent Macaigne (Suspended Time, MIFF 2024) as her employers – as well as Ilinca Manolache, the irrepressible star of Jude’s 2023 opus Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World – this left-of-field literary riff is both deeply compassionate and merciless in dramatising the sometimes absurd, often humiliating, plight of migrant workers.
“[The director is] far more than a trickster … Diary of a Chambermaid ends on a bittersweet note whose nimbleness fully encapsulates why Radu Jude is among our great filmmakers.” – RogerEbert.com
Tickets
For information about the accessible services being offered at MIFF, please visit miff.com.au/access. If you require any access service, such as wheelchair/step-free access, for any MIFF session, please call 03 8660 4888 or email boxoffice@miff.com.au to book your ticket.
You might also like ...
Five working-class Gen Z friends drift apart in this deeply felt study of adulthood that won the Directors’ Fortnight Audience Award at Cannes.
Almost a decade after Western, Valeska Grisebach returns with this similarly rough-hewn, simmering tale of border town intrigue that claimed the Cannes Jury Prize.
Awarded the Un Certain Regard Prize at Cannes, this indelible study of loss joins a fragmented family as they take a trip to heal and confront the past.