Out of the Blue, or Une Femme A La Mer is a quietly deep and layered drama that explores themes of loneliness, frustration in relationships, love, and freedom.

Anna is on holiday in a peaceful part of the coast of Turkey with her boyfriend, Thomas. Anna has a sense of foreboding after a bad dream and wakes up on the beach convinced the little girl she saw earlier has drowned. She becomes obsessed with wanting to know if the little girl is ok or not, much to her boyfriend’s confusion and embarrassment at times. A mystery unfolds surrounding what Anna believes has happened to the child which may or may not have actually occurred – ultimately though that is not the point of the film.

The plot surrounding the little girl really serves as a subtle and layered way to show us that Anna is herself lost emotionally and looking for answers and direction in her life.
She ends up at a local bar talking to a stranger who offers some perspective that she badly needs. Anna’s line of dialogue, “I always thought that I had to be in love to be happy,” reveals much of her characters inner struggle.

One of the great strengths of this beautiful, deceptively simple short film lies in the confidence that writer/ director Céline Baril has in showing us deeply personal emotions externalised in simple actions.

Anna is a woman having an important and undoubtedly universally relatable realisation about her life, that she must listen to herself and follow her freedom – the disappearance of the little girl is simply a trigger to wake her up to that discovery.

The sense of sultry summer heat and cool blue waters of Turkey serve to greatly enhance the tense atmosphere and Anna’s need to release herself from what holds her back.

Out of the Blue was selected at the following festivals:

Festival Côté Court de Pantin 2022 / Sélection pour le Prix Unifrance du court-métrage 2022 / Aesthetica Short Film Festival 2022 / Un Festival C’est Trop Court – Nice 2022/ MyFrenchFimFestival 2023 avec Unifrance