French filmmaker Laurence Ferreira Barbosa's third directorial venture ‘La Vie Moderne’ (Modern Life) a story on three separate characters will be screened at 3.00 pm on Tuesday July 22 and at 6.30 pm on Wednesday, July 23 at the Alliance Francaise, Barnes Place, Colombo 7.

The film comprises three interweaving storylines, involving three very different people who are looking for something to give their lives meaning. Marguerite is a solitary 17-year old, overly judgemental of others and incapable of having a normal relationship with anyone. Unable to confide in either her family or her schoolmates, she spends most of her time alone, talking to God.

Meanwhile, an older woman, Claire has become frustrated at not being able to have a child. Suspecting that her partner is sterile, she goes to Paris to consult a fertility expert. She ends up having a series of liaisons with desirable men who are more than willing to give her a child. In another part of Paris, a man in his late thirties, Jacques, is trying to restore his self-esteem after losing his wife, his child and his job. He becomes entangled with a mysterious young woman Eva, who engages him as a private detective to trace her missing sister. Three people, three lives… can any of them find what they are looking for?

With her third film, a skilfully crafted mosaic on modern life, Laurence Ferreira Barbosa confirms her standing as one of France's most promising new film directors. As in all of Barbosa's films to date, an acute sense of realism is offset by a slightly surreal comic edge. The three principal characters are by no means as mentally deranged as the heroine in the director's first film (Les Gens normaux n'ont rien d'exceptionnel), but there is a worryingly eccentric side to each of them, and this adds to their vulnerability and charm.