Skirt Day

Sonia Bergerac is a teacher at a school for ‘difficult’ children. The considerable problems she encounters in adapting to her new workplace are compounded by her husband’s decision to leave her and before long she is teetering on the edge of a nervous breakdown.

Sonia wears a skirt to work – although the school’s head has prohibited his female staff members from doing so. Wearing a skirt certainly does not give others the right to treat her as a whore. She just wants to teach. But she’s scared, too. And that’s why she’s on antidepressants.

One day, Sonia comes across a gun in one of her pupil’s school bags. Surprised, she grabs it, and, amidst the confusion accidentally fires a shot. The bullet injures her pupil’s leg. In spite of Sonia’s protestations, the commotion soon turns into a veritable hostage drama with all the usual trappings: immediate intervention on the part of the police and politicians,
pa­nicking parents, statements from the school’s head and teaching staff, and the arrival of the media in full force. All of which prompts a few people to drop their masks… La journée de la jupe is a fascinating psychological study, a socio-critical in­ves­ti­gation – and Isabelle Adjani’s first film in five years. —Berlinale