Naissance d’une étoile (Rise of a star), directed by James Bort in 2017, has been voted by the Academy to join the Oscar race and has been selected for the Live Action Short Film shortlist, beating more than one hundred and fifty films. This wonderful film features the iconic Oscar nominated actress Catherine Deneuve, who stars as Mill Jean and inspires the main character Emma (Dorothée Gilbert) to pursue her dream.

Emma is a ballet dancer who is teetering on the brink of ballet superstardom as she is about to be named the new Ballerina at the Bolshoi. However, she has a secret which is liable to undermine what she has spent a whole life on. It turns out that her roommate Victoire (Antonia Desplat), and her teacher (Pierre Deladonchamps) have found out about her secret, then trying to persuade her to quit the show. Nonetheless, this is a story of a modern heroine. As the title suggests, naissance in French means “birth” and works as a pun in this case. On the one hand, it refers to the birth of the successful Prima Ballerina; On the other hand, it hints Emma’s pregnancy.

 

The director James Bort says that Emma becomes the symbol of this daily struggle for achieving gender equality and she is done submitting to an archaic system that would have her choose between maternity and her career. I think this film has done a great job in delivering a message of hope for young women to stay positive and optimistic about their career when it comes to motherhood concerns.