New queer film Love Me Tender lands in Irish cinemas on Friday, August 7. Based on the book of the same name by Constance Debré, it is an unflinching story of one woman’s fight against an unjust system that demands she prove she’s fit to mother her own child, simply because of who she loves.

When Clémence (Vicky Krieps) ended her marriage with her ex-husband Laurent (Antoine Reinartz), the pair managed to maintain an amicable relationship while sharing custody of their son. That is, until she reveals she is dating women. Laurent files for sole custody of their child Paul (Viggo Ferreira Redier), leading to an emotionally taxing legal battle. 

The Love Me Tender film is written and directed by Anna Casanave Cambet, who was drawn to the story even before conversations of an adaptation arose.

“ The book, especially the character, did me a lot of good because I was a young mother at the time and I felt that I was being shut into a box of this heteropatriarchal system,” she told GCN.

“ The character of Clémence really reconnected me with my identity on a wider spectrum. It made me ask what I really wanted or was ready to sacrifice, because maternity is very often an injunction to shrink our world. And for me, motherhood was something that I saw as a plus and not a reduction of my life.

“The character gave me strength to hold on to my inner freedom. And I figured that the story could do that to others, be it parents or people at large.”

Her relationship with author Constance Debré was somewhat of a slow-burn. They took the time to get to know each other before diving into the project.

“Obviously she was very particular about who she wanted to adapt her book,” Anna shared. “So, initially, we corresponded by letter. And then she saw my other films, and then eventually we went for coffee, very French.

“We met, and we matched, and at that point something shifted because she said, ‘That’s your project, do what you want with it’.

“I had her read the script, but she repeated that she trusted me fully… And I think that it was a great, great bonus to have her full trust.”

True to the original story, it was important for Anna to challenge traditional ideas of both womanhood and motherhood in the film.

“In cinema you usually have two archetypes: it’s either the young desirable woman or the older one with no desire at all, and in between there is this absolute chasm,” Anna explained.

“And the idea of motherhood is that it should only be motherhood. It’s a secondary character. In fact, when I was writing the script, I was trying to find references of similar characters, and I just could not find anything.

“I wanted Clémence to show her sexuality, to show that she’s desirable and desiring, to show that she’s a writer, to show that she’s okay with not having much money, and that there should not be any single contradiction with motherhood.” 

These archetypes exist beyond the screen. Anna noted that when she was trying to finance the project, she “came against quite a lot of misogynistic discourse even before it became homophobic”.

“The whole idea of motherhood had to go against the idea of desire,” she remembered. “There was another question, which was, ‘Is she nice enough? Is she likeable enough?’

“I kept having to tell the potential financiers of the project, ‘Why? This is absolutely crazy because this is not a question you would be asking about a male character’. They lead their lives. They just do what they have to do during the film, and they have families that they sometimes leave aside, and nobody worries about it.

“So, the whole concept of a good mother, of a good woman, was a question that was quite central and that I wanted to debunk.”

In order to execute this properly, the casting choices for Love Me Tender were imperative. Anna said the most important things were to respect Clémence’s age and physicality.

“I was given suggestions of a lot of 30-year-olds, and yet she’s 40-plus in the film,” Anna shared. “I wanted her to have shoulders. I wanted this physicality to really impact on the whole idea of desire; how she desires others, how she searches other women’s desire as well since she is in a rather late exploration of her homosexuality.”

Ultimately, the role was given to Vicky Krieps, a 42-year-old actor from Luxembourg. She may also be known to queer film fans for her role in Hot Milk alongside Emma Mackey and Fiona Shaw.

As Love Me Tender‘s director, Anna of course also considered more technical factors that could help her achieve her desired result.

“We talked a lot with Vicky Krieps about the way she would be filmed, a bit like a lonesome cowboy,” she explained.

“When you film somebody and you want to make them as non-feminine as possible, you’ve got to actually place the camera differently. You’ve got to place the camera as you would for a man, because the whole idea with a man is that you make them look taller, beefier, stronger. Whereas when you place the camera to make a woman look more feminine, you’ll focus on making her smaller and more thinner and more petite.”

Of course, there is a queer storyline at the core of the film, as Clémence faces a battle for custody of her child that is shrouded in homophobia. This is unfortunately a reality that many people have faced, and while some may believe that it’s a thing of the past, it very much still exists today.

At different screenings of Love Me Tender, including its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in 2025, Anna “heard quite a lot of testimonies of people who said that they had lived through the same, be it men or women”.

“Bear in mind that this film was actually set after marriage equality in France,” she added. “And yet, there is this homophobia, this misogyny, that happens through the trial, and it shows that the law is there to protect, but if society does not educate, does not reflect on the concept of family, then obviously the levers to stop LGBTQIA+ people from accessing this equality are still there.”

The director concluded that “the whole idea” of the film is “to allow everyone to see it, to discuss it, and to realise what the system is all about for people who are just simply trying to be themselves.”

Love Me Tender releases in Irish cinemas on August 7. Watch the trailer below!