| Queen to Play | |
| Director: | Caroline Bottaro |
| Producer: | Dominique Besnehard Michel Feller Jean-Philippe Laroche Amelie Latscha |
| Screenplay: | Caroline Bottaro |
| Starring: | Sandrine Bonnaire Kevin Kline Valérie Lagrange |
| Music: | Nicola Piovani |
| Cinematography: | Jean-Claude Larrieu |
| Editing: | Tina Baz |
| Studio: | StudioCanal |
| Runtime: | 96 minutes |
| Country: | France |
| Language: | French |
Queen to Play (original title Joueuse, the feminine form of “player”) is a 2009 French-German film directed by Caroline Bottaro. It is based on the novel La Joueuse d’échecs by Bertina Henrichs.
The film stars Sandrine Bonnaire as a French chambermaid on the island of Corsica. She develops an interest in chess. She has been cleaning the house of an American doctor (played by Kevin Kline in his first French-speaking role), and he begins helping her practice and improve. She must deal with her growing fascination with the game and with her husband and teenaged daughter.
The film had its world premiere on April 25, 2009 in both New York City and Los Angeles, at the Tribeca Film Festival[1] and the ColCoa Film Festival[2] respectively. The national release in France was on August 5, 2009 and in Germany on January 7, 2010. The film is distributed in the U.S. by Zeitgeist Films and was released there on April 1, 2011.