Official selection: Sundance, Toronto International Film Festival
When dedicated high school teacher Rachel (Virginie Efira) falls in love with Ali (Roschdy Zem), it’s not long before she also falls for his 4-year-old daughter Leila. The adolescent giddiness of Rachel and Ali’s late night rendezvous and secret sleepovers evolves into the familiar warmth of family picnics and after-school pickups. Although she feels like a mother, Rachel is not allowed to forget that Lelia is another woman’s daughter. She begins to long for a child of her own, but as a forty-something woman, she is abundantly aware that she has limited time to begin a family. Rachel must decide whether to embrace the inherent entanglements of her current situation, including the looming presence of Ali’s ex-wife Alice (Chiara Mastroanni) or strike out again on her own. Other People’s Children becomes a soulful, sexy, and resolutely grown-up story of the elusive quest for agency and belonging.