My Shortest Love Affair

Twenty years ago, Louisa and Charles were lovers. Now middle-aged, the two cross paths at an arts festival in Paris. Charles, a novelist and Columbia professor, has returned to France for his mother’s funeral, and, after spotting Louisa, follows the editor home. After a night of alcohol and author-quoting, Louisa winds up pregnant. Written and directed by star Karin Albou (whose The Wedding Song closed the Festival in 2009), My Shortest Love Affair tracks nine months in the lives of these two fortysomethings. Obsessed with the idea of getting things right the second time, Charles leaves New York and moves into Louisa’s apartment, which sits across the street from the always revolving windmills of the Moulin Rouge. We watch as the couple commits to compromise. Should they remain silent or talk dirty? Should the cat stay or go? Yet as Louisa’s belly rounds, the only routine the two establish is arguing. Almost every night, one of them storms off in his or her pajamas to the hotel across the street, passing the 18th arrondissement’s string of sex shops along the way. My Shortest Love Affair is not a traditional ode to Paris as the City of Light and love. Rather, it is a darkly comic tribute to trying. [208] —Zoe Pollak Note: For mature audiences; contains nudity