About White Material

Master filmmaker Claire Denis returns with this evocative African-set film starring the electrifying Isabelle Huppert (THE PIANO TEACHER) as a woman fighting to save her family plantation, and way of life, in the face of rising civil unrest. Featured in the Venice, Toronto, New York and Los Angeles film festivals, WHITE MATERIAL is an extraordinarily visceral, potent and very personal rumination on a society turned upside down. In an unnamed African country in the throes of a volatile regime change, Maria Vial (Huppert) is trying to sustain the coffee plantation she runs with her ex-husband André (Christophe Lambert), but unknown to her, he has other plans. The country is tenuously under the control of a rebel militia whose leader (Isaach De Bankolé) is on the run. With the regular army preparing to regain control, French forces have moved out, warning the remaining white residents that they’re on their own if they stay behind. However, Maria refuses to be driven off the land, continuing to run the farm as the specter of impending tragedy looms.