EXCLUSIVE
ROSALIE
Stéphanie Di Giusto’s new drama looks at a bearded woman in 1870s France…
When Stéphanie Di Giusto (2016’s The Dancer) discovered the story of Clémentine Delait, known as the ‘most illustrious and celebrated bearded lady in France’ in the late 19th century, she was hooked. ‘She always refused to be a carnival freak. She really just wanted to live her life as a woman and just stand for her own destiny, her own person,’ she tells Teasers.
After researching ‘other women who suffered from hirsutism’, the French director decided, ‘I didn’t want to make a biopic – it really wasn’t my intention.’ So she instead conjured her own fictional story, Rosalie. The film stars Nadia Tereszkiewicz in the title role – a woman living in a small 1870s French community, who is about to marry debt-ridden café owner Abel (The Taste of Things’ Benoît Magimel). But then, much to his horror, he discovers that she has to shave every day to conceal her hairiness – until Rosalie suggests she uses her appearance to attract curious customers to his ailing business.
Finding an actor to play Rosalie was no easy fix. After fruitless auditioning of many young actors, Di Giusto bumped into Tereszkiewicz, who’d featured in The Dancer. ‘I offered her to come for a test. As soon as she put on the dress and the beard, it was something so natural, so organic for her, because I felt that all the actresses that came... there was something very disturbing for them. They started scratching their face, or they were awkward, something just didn’t work. Whereas for Nadia it was so natural.’
Also casting Magimel (‘the most talented… if not the best actor of his generation in French cinema,’ says the director), Di Giusto calls the film ‘an unconditional love story’, especially as Abel gradually bonds with his wife. ‘For me, the idea was to have sensuality in unexpected places, to change and play – or challenge – the codes of cine
