Emmanuelle Cuau is one of the very few French filmmakers who keeps up the long-buried tradition of romantic secrets and speculations, tapping gleefully into the paranoid wells of fiction, i.e. the power of suggestion and mystery. Her films, predicated on potent challenges to the concept of identity, unravel social roles (Circuit Carole, 1995), investigate the unspeakable core of daily interactions (Not on My Watch, 2017), and unearth riveting causes of alienation within our eternal duality as human beings (Very Well, Thank You, 2007). Identity is fleeting and, naturally, leads to madness; this is what Emmanuel Cuau’s films have shown, better than anyone, through ambiguity and uncertainty, finding endless ways to top with the audience’s consciousness.
"I don't think anyone has ever filmed with such accuracy and sensitivity the strength and complexity of this tenuous and ambiguous bond between a mother and her daughter."
— Annie Ernaux (on the film Circuit Carole, 1994)