ANNE ÉMOND
Anne Émond is a director and scriptwriter who lives and works in Montréal. Between 2005 and 2011, she wrote and directed seven shorts, among which NAISSANCES and SOPHIE LAVOIE, which travelled to several international film festivals and received many awards. In 2001, she directs her first feature, NUIT #1. This movie has then been selected to more than twenty-five international film festivals, including Busan IFF, Rotterdam IFF, Taipei IFF and TIFF. The feature received several awards and mentions, among which the Best first Canadian feature at the Génie 2012 gala. It was sold in ten countries, like France and the USA. LES ETRES CHERS (OUR LOVED ONES), her second fiction feature in 2015, has also been warmly welcomed and noticed (Locarno, TIFF, Le Gala du Cinéma Québécois, Canadian Screen Awards). NELLY, her most recent feature (2017), freely adapted from the life and work of Nelly Arcan, a writer from Québec, and for which she also wrote the script, has taken off with success at the TIFF. Anne is currently working on writing her next film, MONDE NEUF.

Director's statement
"JEUNE JULIETTE is the simple story about a young girl leaving childhood behind her to start the long journey towards self-discovery and acceptance of her personality, image and beliefs. If many « coming-of-age » movies tell the hardship of becoming an adult, JEUNE JULIETTE focuses on the hardship of becoming a teenager. «I’m looking forward to something, but I don’t know what», says Juliette to her dad, at the very beginning of the film. She therefore describes with eloquence but unconsciously this period of life so exciting though also terrifying. She doesn’t know what she will become, but she knows that she is looking forward to becoming it. Juliette will live several experiences which will change her forever. She will understand how important other peoples’ opinion and glance can be. The child she is doesn’t even see that she is chubby, and therefore doesn’t see that other people notice it. The child she is can both beautifully and naively believe that this out-of-reach guy she’s in love with will soon love her back. The child she is can believe that her mother, who almost abandoned her, will warmly welcome her in New York. The end of childhood is like stopping to believe in the impossible. I did get somehow inspired by my childhood to write this script. I, myself, was pretty chubby from age 8 to 18 approximately. When I think about this period, two facts amuse me and seem interesting at the drama level. First, it’s only very late, when I was around 14, that I noticed the situation. Before that, at school, some pupil called me «fat Emond», I had never thought about my body, nor compared it to others’. I think that I simply never realized that I was overweight. This probably led me to the second interesting aspect of this story: being fat never impeded me from doing anything. I had a few girlfriends, but loyal and amazing ones. I was trying out every style, from hippie to gothic to punk rock: I was pretty audacious and felt good. I fell in love with boys who didn’t love me back in real life, but they triggered daydreams in me, and I lived « true imaginary stories » with them. Juliette, despite her weight and her dissatisfactions, has everything to be happy: friends, a strong personality, a good family. She just needs to figure it out".