Main Slate
The Diary of a Chambermaid
Radu Jude
U.S. Premiere
Radu Jude brilliantly explores Europe’s modern-day power and class dynamics through the trenchant story of a young Romanian woman working for a well-to-do family in Bordeaux, while her own young daughter misses her back home.
- Runtime
- 94 min
- Country
- France/
Romania - Language
- French,
Romanian - Year
- 2026
- More information
- Official film page
Screenings
Our most prolific contemporary cinematic satirist, Radu Jude (Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World, NYFF61) returns with an absorbing and trenchant chronicle of a young Romanian woman, Gianina (Ana Dumitrascu), who works for a well-to-do married couple in Bordeaux, cleaning their home and tending to their little boy. As she counts down the days until Christmas, when she can return to her country and see her own young daughter, Gianina bears witness to her employers’ liberal-minded condescension; at the same time, she rehearses in a local theater production adapting Octave Mirbeau’s transgressive 1900 novel The Diary of a Chambermaid, which itself inspired Jude’s overall project. In his humane yet meticulously barbed film, Jude brilliantly explores Europe’s irreconcilable modern-day power and class dynamics in one domestic space, resulting in perhaps his most heartfelt film to date. A Film Movement release.
Explore more on Film Comment:
Our most prolific contemporary cinematic satirist, Radu Jude (Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World, NYFF61) returns with an absorbing and trenchant chronicle of a young Romanian woman, Gianina (Ana Dumitrascu), who works for a well-to-do married couple in Bordeaux, cleaning their home and tending to their little boy. As she counts down the days until Christmas, when she can return to her country and see her own young daughter, Gianina bears witness to her employers’ liberal-minded condescension; at the same time, she rehearses in a local theater production adapting Octave Mirbeau’s transgressive 1900 novel The Diary of a Chambermaid, which itself inspired Jude’s overall project. In his humane yet meticulously barbed film, Jude brilliantly explores Europe’s irreconcilable modern-day power and class dynamics in one domestic space, resulting in perhaps his most heartfelt film to date. A Film Movement release.
Explore more on Film Comment: