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I Only Believe in Myself: Conversation with Murielle Joudet (Semiotext
A long-form dialogue—on cinema and survival—with the visionary French filmmaker.
The virtuous always engage in a pseudoreligious morality. But there’s one thing they never the desire for pleasure is thought in motion. It’s what makes you transfigure a dull and repetitive sexual act into something that can bring you to ecstasy and an idea of eternity ...
—Catherine Breillat to Murielle Joudet
Catherine Breillat has always told just one her own, the story of a young girl whose existence was forbidden, who was, from childhood, cut in half, split between her mind and her sexuality, marked by the shame of being born female. She became a filmmaker at a time when choosing that vocation meant disobeying the world.
During six months between September 2022 and March 2023, the film critic Murielle Joudet interviewed Catherine Breillat for thirty hours, often following up with further discussion over the phone. Joudet and Breillat discuss each of her films in chronological order, moving freely between Breillat’s cinematic vision, her life, and the situations, artworks, and thought that have inspired her films.
From A Real Young Girl (1975) to Last Summer (2023), Breillat has made films in an attempt to recover what she believes was stolen from her— the “unfilmable,” inexhaustible grey area of the feminine where shame, transgression, sensuality, disgust, and the search for oneself intertwine until they become indistinguishable. Her work proposes a haunting imperative to know oneself ... and for her heroines, this spiritual search plays out as an open war with the opposite sex.
A conversation with Catherine Breillat is as much a cinema master class as it is a lesson in survival.
The virtuous always engage in a pseudoreligious morality. But there’s one thing they never the desire for pleasure is thought in motion. It’s what makes you transfigure a dull and repetitive sexual act into something that can bring you to ecstasy and an idea of eternity ...
—Catherine Breillat to Murielle Joudet
Catherine Breillat has always told just one her own, the story of a young girl whose existence was forbidden, who was, from childhood, cut in half, split between her mind and her sexuality, marked by the shame of being born female. She became a filmmaker at a time when choosing that vocation meant disobeying the world.
During six months between September 2022 and March 2023, the film critic Murielle Joudet interviewed Catherine Breillat for thirty hours, often following up with further discussion over the phone. Joudet and Breillat discuss each of her films in chronological order, moving freely between Breillat’s cinematic vision, her life, and the situations, artworks, and thought that have inspired her films.
From A Real Young Girl (1975) to Last Summer (2023), Breillat has made films in an attempt to recover what she believes was stolen from her— the “unfilmable,” inexhaustible grey area of the feminine where shame, transgression, sensuality, disgust, and the search for oneself intertwine until they become indistinguishable. Her work proposes a haunting imperative to know oneself ... and for her heroines, this spiritual search plays out as an open war with the opposite sex.
A conversation with Catherine Breillat is as much a cinema master class as it is a lesson in survival.
- GenresFilm
224 pages, Paperback
Published October 28, 2025
10 people are currently reading
336 people want to read
About the author
Catherine Breillat
18 books50 followersBreillat was born in Bressuire, Deux-Sèvres, but grew up in Niort. She decided to become a writer and director at the age of 12 after watching Ingmar Bergman's Gycklarnas afton, believing she had found her "'fictional body'" in Harriet Andersson's character, Anna. She started her career after studying acting at Yves Furet "Studio d'Entraînement de l'Acteur" in Paris together with her sister, actress Marie-Hélène Breillat (born 2 June 1947) in 1967. At the age of 17, she had her novel, l'Homme facile, (Easy Man) published. Ironically the French government banned it for readers under 18 years old.
Breillat is known for films focusing on sexuality, intimacy, gender conflict and sibling rivalry. Breillat has been the subject of controversy for her explicit depictions of sexuality and violence. She cast the pornstar Rocco Siffredi in her films Romance (Romance X, 1999) and Anatomie de l'enfer (Anatomy of Hell, 2004). Her novels have been best-sellers.
Her work has been associated with the New French Extremity tendency.
In an interview with Senses of Cinema, she described David Cronenberg as another filmmaker she considers to have a similar approach to sexuality in film.
Though Breillat spends most of her time behind the camera, she has been in a handful of movies, making her film debut in 1972 as Mouchette in Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris.
In 2004, Breillat suffered a stroke.
A friend of hers, Christophe Rocancourt, a con artist, was to play a role in the upcoming film "Bad Love". However, in 2009 she accused him of taking advantage of her handicap by embezzling €650,000. Breillat documented the incident in her book, published in 2009, called "Abus de faiblesse" (Abuse of Weakness).
As of 2010, Breillat is almost fully recovered from her stroke and still intends to film Bad Love with Naomi Campbell in a lead role. Departing from her native French, Breillat plans for the dialogue in the movie to be in both English and Chinese. In September 2010, Breillat's second fairy-tale based film, Sleeping Beauty (La belle endormie), will open in the Orizzonti sidebar in the 67th Venice Film Festival.
Breillat is known for films focusing on sexuality, intimacy, gender conflict and sibling rivalry. Breillat has been the subject of controversy for her explicit depictions of sexuality and violence. She cast the pornstar Rocco Siffredi in her films Romance (Romance X, 1999) and Anatomie de l'enfer (Anatomy of Hell, 2004). Her novels have been best-sellers.
Her work has been associated with the New French Extremity tendency.
In an interview with Senses of Cinema, she described David Cronenberg as another filmmaker she considers to have a similar approach to sexuality in film.
Though Breillat spends most of her time behind the camera, she has been in a handful of movies, making her film debut in 1972 as Mouchette in Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris.
In 2004, Breillat suffered a stroke.
A friend of hers, Christophe Rocancourt, a con artist, was to play a role in the upcoming film "Bad Love". However, in 2009 she accused him of taking advantage of her handicap by embezzling €650,000. Breillat documented the incident in her book, published in 2009, called "Abus de faiblesse" (Abuse of Weakness).
As of 2010, Breillat is almost fully recovered from her stroke and still intends to film Bad Love with Naomi Campbell in a lead role. Departing from her native French, Breillat plans for the dialogue in the movie to be in both English and Chinese. In September 2010, Breillat's second fairy-tale based film, Sleeping Beauty (La belle endormie), will open in the Orizzonti sidebar in the 67th Venice Film Festival.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
November 9, 2025
I practice "know thyself" in all of my films. I'm not ashamed to know every kind of depravity, I'm familiar with it. I don't glory in it, but I know that it exists: you can love something that you're ashamed of, things you don't want to shout from the rooftops. Because that's what life is, that's what it means to live and to have an awareness of it. Otherwise, you die without ever having encountered yourself. . .
I want to see what I am, and make others see.
I appreciate Breillats philosophies in all their brutality, even when it feels like her 'feminism' lacks intersectionality. Her conviction is an incitement.
I want to see what I am, and make others see.
I appreciate Breillats philosophies in all their brutality, even when it feels like her 'feminism' lacks intersectionality. Her conviction is an incitement.
December 12, 2025
wish it was longerrrrr. i’m greedy for more of her thoughts and opinions. loved the conversations on romance, perfect love, and last summer. you see how passionately she speaks about filmmaking and look at the slop being produced today and all you can is sob..
December 25, 2025
Breillat was clearly made for cinema. Her obsession w being unconventional, subjugating women, and being a rocco sifredi superfan whiplashed my admiration for her
February 22, 2026
"...it's because I've managed to pull myself out of the feminine condition that I've been stuffed into like a sack, like when they drown stray cats and mice." ... revelatory interviews with Catherine Breillat
February 13, 2026
"if you're equals, you're not making love. it's the back and forth between the weaker and the stronger one."
February 27, 2026
"you mean that you have to show the consequences? when i think about it, you always show the consequences of a sexual relationship.
always. i didn't know that was it, but you're right.
That carries weight; it's not just imagery, there are consequences.
For me, it's harsh, whatever it is. The things people claim to be the dirtiest and most crude can reach the divine. That's why society has to mutilate them, it's absolutely impossible that we could learn that the sexual path could be a divine path, the royal path of absolute transparency. Know thyself: be lucid, see the self, understand the self... I want to see myself, to film what is never shown except in a pornographic or erotic way. While something totally different, something important in a different way, is playing out. Quite simply, the meaning of life."
got a lot out of this. reading a lot of director books lately and for me they function best when the author really has a deep connection with the work and it shows, when they engage with its ideas and feelings as directly as they can without resorting to off subject meanderings or pulling in too many other outside references. this does that. rule number two is ideally you've literally met the artist and include a conversation. the fujiwara on lewis had that as does this obviously.
and what a conversation it is. breillat is nothing if not direct and clear sighted and bold and expansive in her thinking and joudet does well to prod her in the right places to get the fullest picture of her thinking and her art.
i read this at the same time as a friend and she viscerally did not like a lot of what catherine had to say which intrigued me. (hands in air shirk)
love that she loves lautreamont , makes sense!
a MUST read if you are doing a deep dive
always. i didn't know that was it, but you're right.
That carries weight; it's not just imagery, there are consequences.
For me, it's harsh, whatever it is. The things people claim to be the dirtiest and most crude can reach the divine. That's why society has to mutilate them, it's absolutely impossible that we could learn that the sexual path could be a divine path, the royal path of absolute transparency. Know thyself: be lucid, see the self, understand the self... I want to see myself, to film what is never shown except in a pornographic or erotic way. While something totally different, something important in a different way, is playing out. Quite simply, the meaning of life."
got a lot out of this. reading a lot of director books lately and for me they function best when the author really has a deep connection with the work and it shows, when they engage with its ideas and feelings as directly as they can without resorting to off subject meanderings or pulling in too many other outside references. this does that. rule number two is ideally you've literally met the artist and include a conversation. the fujiwara on lewis had that as does this obviously.
and what a conversation it is. breillat is nothing if not direct and clear sighted and bold and expansive in her thinking and joudet does well to prod her in the right places to get the fullest picture of her thinking and her art.
i read this at the same time as a friend and she viscerally did not like a lot of what catherine had to say which intrigued me. (hands in air shirk)
love that she loves lautreamont , makes sense!
a MUST read if you are doing a deep dive
Read
March 16, 2026“i was a very brazen young girl”
there is a lot to unpack. morally, it’s hard to say what is strictly right or wrong, although some of this could be, maybe should be, denounced. but i can still appreciate it. the allure of harm and destruction to the self, captivity and reclamation, die before you can be born again.
there is a lot to unpack. morally, it’s hard to say what is strictly right or wrong, although some of this could be, maybe should be, denounced. but i can still appreciate it. the allure of harm and destruction to the self, captivity and reclamation, die before you can be born again.
November 11, 2025
required reading
November 19, 2025
2.5 some really interesting high starring bits at the start but just didn’t really care about a lot of the stuff she was talking about. That’s a me problem though
December 12, 2025
Sex, truth, and videotape
She said so many things ! Not my Bible but i thought it was interesting to live in her head for a few hundred pages <3
She said so many things ! Not my Bible but i thought it was interesting to live in her head for a few hundred pages <3
December 31, 2025
fascinating….Everything in here said with insane levels of conviction
Read
January 5, 2026CB is truly one of one. Cool that Cronenberg fought censorship of her films in Ontario, big shouts to David.
March 8, 2026
her films changed my life and i'm absolutely enamoured with her mind. i wanna be her when i grow up
March 18, 2026
completamente louca
Read
May 2, 2026trochę się zawiodłam, osoba przeprowadzająca wywiad krążyła wokół tych samych tematów. od drugiej połowy było już o wiele ciekawiej i faktycznie się wciągnęłam.
February 28, 2026
When she writes about sex it is the most Cronenbergian thing — “You can’t escape sex, it’s everywhere” (Breillat) // “Sex is uppermost in my thoughts…even when the scene isn’t overly sexual. It is a connection with the most primordial life force and I feel that it is always there as a compelling connection to what is most basic to human existence as a body…. [sex] is not an obsession it’s just an observation. I see it—it’s evident” (Cronenberg)
May 3, 2026
Excellent tell-all by an artist who is passionate about her art, and I could have had more of it.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews