Recently divorced, and watching helplessly as her only son leaves home, Blandine (Côte) is struggling to find her footing again. So when her former best friend Magalie (a scene-stealing Calamy), loud and fearless, suddenly resurfaces, she allows herself to be spontaneous for a change… The two will take the trip they always dreamed of as teenagers, to Amorgos, the amazing location where Luc Besson’s The Big Blue was shot.

But as they head off towards their destination, it’s soon apparent that Magalie’s very different approach to holidaying – and to life – could lead Blandine to her breaking point…and beyond!

TWO TICKETS TO GREECE is an out-and-out crowd-pleaser, a breezily delightful tale of female camaraderie, stoked by laughter, tears and, of course, great scenery. It’s time to get away from it all.
www.palacefilms.com.au

Following her Cesar award-winning performance in Antoinette in the Cévennes, the marvellous Laure Calamy (Call My Agent!) demonstrates the phenomenal range of her talents in writer/director Eric Gravel’s gripping new drama, as a single woman pushed to her limits when the delicate balance between her home and work life is upended.

Calamy’s tour de force performance won her the Best Actress Award at the Venice International Film Festival, where the film premiered in the Horizon’s section last year, and also landed Gravel a Best Director award for his sophomore feature.

Calamy plays mother of two Julie, who is just making ends meet as the head chambermaid of a five-star hotel in Paris, with only sporadic alimony payments from her ex-husband. Each meticulously-planned day starts before sunrise, preparing the kids for school and undertaking a long commute to work, where she unflappably completes her duties in time to return to them. But when a national railway strike breaks out – paralysing the entire Île-de-France public transport system – Julie’s routine is thrown into chaos, increasingly pushing her into a frenetic race against time that threatens everything she’s worked so hard for.

An exploration of the driving and often relentless rhythm of our lives, and how we manage (or fail) to keep the wheels spinning from one day to the next, FULL TIME has all the qualities of a pulse-pounding thriller, while offering a superb commentary on the daily hustle that defines modern life. Calamy fully deserves the multiple prizes awarded for her work here; she and the film’s gasp-inducing final scenes are unforgettable.
www.palacefilms.com.au/fulltime