House of Tolerance (L'Apollonide: Souvenirs de la maison close)

Bertrand Bonello wrote and directed the 122-minute French costume drama House of Tolerance (French title L'Apollonide: Souvenirs de la maison close). It portrays the women living in a luxurious Paris brothel at the end of the nineteenth century. The film had its world premiere on 16 May 2011 in the main competition at Cannes. Nominated for eight César Awards, it won for Best Costume Design, and it took the Lumière Award for Best Female Revelation.

The story follows the shared life of twelve women inside the walls of the house. All but one scene take place indoors. There is no developed plot: the film is built from more or less self-contained episodes, and the characters are deliberately not individualised. The cast includes Hafsia Herzi as Samira, Céline Sallette as Clotilde, Jasmine Trinca as Julie and Adèle Haenel as Léa, together with Alice Barnole, Iliana Zabeth and Noémie Lvovsky.

Cinematographer Josée Deshaies, Bonello's wife, gives the film a lavish, brightly coloured look that ties it to the French tradition of painting in which prostitutes often posed. Bonello has said that earlier paintings and books showed such houses only from the male point of view, and that he wanted to show how the women looked at the men.