This book provides the first detailed analysis of the work of four important contemporary directors whose work falls between the reductive labels of 'auteur cinema' and 'popular cinema'. Their work is contextualised within this timely investigation into the shifting relationship between the privileged status of the auteur and questions of genre, gender and cinematic production in France today. This important contribution to understanding the shifting landscapes of contemporary French film identifies an essential intermediacy in the films of these directors, which works to undo a series of dominant oppositions between generic template and contestation, between public collectivity and personal intimacy, to offer a new perspective on the location of the political in contemporary French cinema. The four chapters provide detailed critical analysis of films by Dominique Cabrera, Laetitia Masson, Noémie Lvovsky and Marion Vernoux, and present common threads including the possible construction of social intimacy, the political demystification of romance narratives and the role of nostalgia, to argue that their work uses popular genres in order to challenge dominant cultural representation that resonates beyond the immediate parameters of contemporary French cinema. This book will be of interest to researchers working in French and European cinema, to students of Film Studies and French and Francophone Studies and to film enthusiasts.

Julia Dobson is Senior Lecturer in French at the University of Sheffield

List of illustrations Series editors' Foreword Acknowledgements ntroduction: continuing negotiations 1. Dominique Cabrera: intimate constructions of a 'bonheur collectif' 2. Noémie Lvovsky: rupture and transmission 3. Laetitia Masson: suspect identities 4. Marion Vernoux: encountering difference Index