At an unusual private school for girls, new students show up in coffins. The establishment’s teachers, Mademoiselle Eva and Mademoiselle Edith introduce new girl Iris and her fellow pupils to the school’s curriculum, which includes fairy-like dances through a nearby forest. When night falls, the older girls, who are on the threshold of womanhood, are then given mysterious, life-changing lessons.

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Further Reading

• Davina Quinlivan, ‘Material Hauntings: The Kinaesthesia of Sound in Innocence (Hadzihalilovic, 2004)’, Studies in French Cinema, 9:3 (2009)
• ‘The French Female Butterfly Collector: Hadžihalilović, Denis and de Van and the cinéma du corps,’Studies in European CinemaSpecial Issue on French Women Filmmakers (Bristol: Intellect Press, 2013), (2013), 10:1, 35-44
• Vivian Sobchack, “Waking Life: Vivian Sobchack on the Experience of Innocence” in Film Comment 41 (November/December 2005): 46-49