Eva Ionesco (born 1965) directed this film based on the story of her early life with her mother, the photographer Irina Ionesco, whose photos became very famous in fashion and erotic magazines: Irina used her daughter to pose for her between the ages of four and twelve.
The film is played by Anamaria Vartolomei as the ten-year-old Violetta and her mother Hanah by Isabelle Huppert. Violetta has been staying with her grandmother when the dominant Hanah arrives like a whirlwind, lavishes expensive clothes on Violetta and begins taking many photographs of her.
At the beginning the photos are innocent but Hanah begins to make Violetta pose more suggestively, and the photos take on a much more erotic tone. Violetta rebels and disowns her mother, who is in effect robbing her child of her youth: Hanah insists that the photos are art.
In reality Irina was taking much more sexualised photos than what is shown on the screen and was severely traumatised by her mother. A court case in 2012 awarded her just 10,000 euros. An appeal court the following year barred Irina from using any photos, stating that they amounted to paedopornography.
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