Traces

Over the course of a single night in Pigalle, the red light district of Paris, a sex worker is swept through an emotional roller coaster that leaves her disoriented and alone with a strange response in her body. As dawn approaches, during a client visit she realizes she is inexplicably pregnant to something unusual. She heads to the train tracks and gives birth to a teratoma tumor — an enigmatic, fragile form of life. In the quiet light of morning, she walks around with her tumor baby, and tries to process what actually is happening. She ends up at Sacre Coeur, and decides to offer her baby to the Basilica. After saying an intimate goodbye to her teratoma baby, she goes back to her corner. Restlessly.

When a pathologically well-behaved woman is told she will die in 24 hours from a condition caused by emotional repression, she finally begins to feel—rage, defiance, desire—only to survive and discover that the institution that diagnosed her cannot allow her to live.

Two sisters, one dead mother, and a lifelong competition for her love that curdles a family dinner into a vicious, absurd battle stretching from the dining table to the cliffs of Mont-Saint-Michel.