My Duck Is Dead

"My Little Princess", Eva Ionesco's debut film explores the intense relationship between mother & daughter. Although, initially it may sound like a cinematic cliché to go over family dynamics once again, the film offers us a double controversy:

The first being the relationship itself and the fact that the mother (played beautifully by Isabelle Huppert) takes erotic/pornographic photos of her under-aged daughter (Anamaria Vartolomei) and sells them. The second being that these very events happened in the director's actual life and caused a huge spark in France.

The film is autobiographical. Eva Ionesco's life was marked by the same experiences Violetta had to go through, as her own mother, Irina, made her do for her. The pictures were pornographic in its content, which is what the director is repeating as a way, perhaps, to justify her own youth with a mother modeled after Hanna in the film.