Ultraviolette and the Blood-Spitters Gang

After the death of his grandmother Emma, Robin Hunzinger and his mother Claudie find a carefully preserved collection of letters which Emma received from a girl called Marcelle. In the 1920s, Emma and Marcelle met at school in Dijon. Secretly, love blossomed between the two teenage girls, but after two years they parted ways. Marcelle developed tuberculosis and was admitted to a sanatorium, where her letters to Emma became increasingly fervent and desperate, and her rebellious behavior aroused the attentions of three other seriously ill young women.

Complementing the sparse photographs of the women, Hunzinger combines archive footage, avant-garde films, and music to create a sensuous, poetic atmosphere. The voiceover quotes from the eloquent letters of Marcelle, a daring young woman ahead of her time, who rejects adult life with its coarseness and restrictions, and goes her own way with a group of kindred spirits.

Nominated for the Beeld en Geluid IDFA ReFrame Award