Plot

When Hanah re-emerges in the life of her pre-pubescent daughter, she comes with a strange, yet attractive proposition: she needs her own girl to pose for her in ways that would later take by surprise the Parisian art world of the 1970s.

Violetta is raised by her grandmother. Her mother Hanna tries to make a living on taking photographs and concentrates on her dreams to become a famous artist. In order to succeed as an artist she doesn't worry about dating men of questionable reputation. Only every now and then her mother visits her daughter but during these occasions it occurs to her that her daughter could be a potential model. She starts exploiting her daughter who by transforming into a kind of Lolita becomes increasingly alienated from other children of her age. At school she is eventually frequently insulted and rejected. Then Mamie dies and Hannah's photographs are about to unequivocally overstep the line of acceptability. Hanna even coerces Violetta mercilessly into cooperation by withholding her food in case she doesn't agree to pose for increasingly daring photographs.

When the eccentric unsuccessful artist, Hanah Giurgiu, re-emerges after one of her countless extended absences in the life of her pre-pubescent daughter, Violetta, she comes with a strange, yet attractive proposition: Hanah needs her own girl to pose for her in ways that would later take by surprise the Parisian art world of the 1970s. However, as the obsessively self-absorbed parent keeps blurring the boundaries between art and eroticism, morality and depravity, the situation is bound to get out of hand, robbing Violetta of her innocence, little by little.—Nick Riganas