“[Filmmaker] Jean-Claude Brisseau, 62, was convicted by a court in Paris last December of forcing actresses to masturbate during casting ‘test’ shots to ‘satisfy his own sexual impulses’. He was given a one-year, suspended jail sentence and fined €15,000. In a movie shown all this week on the fringes of the Cannes festival, M. Brisseau tells the story of a director whose life and career are ruined after he asks actresses to perform erotic acts during auditions.” The film has been generally well-received, but many critics have remarked on the surreal nature of it all.