Bilitis is a 1977 French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 romantic drama film

Drama film

A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...

 directed by photographer David Hamilton

David Hamilton (photographer)

David Hamilton is a British photographer and occasional film director most known for his images of young women.-Early life and career:...

 with film score

Film score

A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film, forming part of the film's soundtrack, which also usually includes dialogue and sound effects...

 by composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

 Francis Lai

Francis Lai

Francis Lai is a French accordionist, and composer noted for his film scores.While in his twenties, Francis Lai left home and went to Paris where he became part of the lively Montmartre music scene...

. It stars Patti D'Arbanville

Patti D'Arbanville

Patricia "Patti" D'Arbanville is an American actress and former model.-Early life:D'Arbanville, born May 25, 1951 in New York City, New York, is the daughter of Jean , an artist, and George D'Arbanville, a bartender, and attended PS 41 on Eleventh Street...

 and Mona Kristensen as the title characters Bilitis and Melissa respectively.

Synopsis

Although Bilitis can be best described as a coming of age

Coming of age

Coming of age is a young person's transition from childhood to adulthood. The age at which this transition takes place varies in society, as does the nature of the transition. It can be a simple legal convention or can be part of a ritual, as practiced by many societies...

 film, the title character, Bilitis, ends up returning to school at the end of the film realizing she is not yet ready for adulthood.

Style

The film is shot in the same soft focus

Soft focus

In photography, soft focus is a lens flaw, in which the lens forms images that are blurred due to spherical aberration. A soft focus lens deliberately introduces spherical aberration in order to give the appearance of blurring the image while retaining sharp edges; it is not the same as an...

 style that is common of David Hamilton's

David Hamilton (photographer)

David Hamilton is a British photographer and occasional film director most known for his images of young women.-Early life and career:...

 photography and his other films.

Cast

• Patti D'Arbanville
  Patti D'Arbanville
  Patricia "Patti" D'Arbanville is an American actress and former model.-Early life:D'Arbanville, born May 25, 1951 in New York City, New York, is the daughter of Jean , an artist, and George D'Arbanville, a bartender, and attended PS 41 on Eleventh Street...
  
   as Bilitis
• Mona Kristensen as Melissa
• Bernard Giraudeau
  Bernard Giraudeau
  Bernard Giraudeau was a French actor, film director, scriptwriter, producer and writer.-Life:Giraudeau was born in La Rochelle, Charente-Maritime. In 1963 he enlisted in the French navy as a trainee engineer, qualifying as the first in his class a year later...
  
   as Lucas
• Mathieu Carrière
  Mathieu Carrière
  Mathieu Carrière is a German actor.Carrière grew up in Berlin and Lübeck; he attended the Jesuit boarding school Lycée Saint-François-Xavier in Vannes, France, a school which had previously been attended by the director of Carrière's first major film, Volker Schlöndorff. In 1969 Carrière moved to...
  
   as Mikias
• Gilles Kohler as Pierre
• Irka Bochenko as Prudence
• Jacqueline Fontaine as Head Mistress
• Marie-Thérèse Caumont as Sub-Principal
• Germaine Delbat as Principal
• Madeleine Damien as Nanny
• Camille Larivière as Susy
• Catherine Leprince as Helen