Erinnerung eines Mädchens

In the organizer's words:

At the age of 17, young Annie spends a summer as a caregiver at a vacation home for children on the French north coast. Far from her home village and the provincial, Catholic environment of her parents' grocery store, she hopes to fulfill her dreams of a great love. Her first sexual encounter with H., the head caretaker five years her senior, is unexpectedly violent - but Annie makes every conceivable effort to reinterpret the experience as a passionate love affair. She counters H.'s open disinterest in her with a frenzied attempt to satisfy her lust for him through other bodies. Mockery and humiliation by her peers and H. himself are the result, but do not stop her from orienting her whole being towards him. Even though Annie, euphoric and party-happy, perceives the summer of 1958 as the best time of her life, the assaults manifest themselves directly in physical terms: menstrual irregularities and eating disorders accompany her for years. Only much later, through the writing of "Remembrance," does Ernaux acknowledge the events as a sexual and verbal experience of violence. "Memory of a Girl" is 76-year-old Annie Ernaux's search for clues to her own past at the time of publication. Writing, she remembers the girl of that time and recognizes herself anew through the act of writing. A deep connection between female desire and the patriarchal subordination of female bodies thus becomes visible. Together with the actress Veronika Bachfischer, Sarah Kohm explores this only seemingly overcome connection in a concentrated monologue: Does Annie's story repeat itself across generations? Can a language and narrative for female desire be developed that unfolds beyond the male gaze? "Memory of a Girl" sets out on a quest - starting with the audience's gaze resting on an actress's body. Author Annie Ernaux was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in October 2022. This content has been machine translated.