My Favorite Season  My Favorite Season () is a 1993 French drama film directed by André Téchiné, co-written by Téchiné and Pascal Bonitzer, and starring Catherine Deneuve, Daniel Auteuil, and Marthe Villalonga. The story concerns a middle-aged brother and sister who resume their fragile relationship when they are forced to care for their ailing mother. It won Best Foreign Language Film at the 1996 Boston Society of Film Critics Awards. Berthe, an elderly widow, is forced by her declining health to close the French farmhouse where she has spent much of her life. She moves in with her daughter Émilie and son-in-law Bruno, who share a legal practice and have two grown children: Anne, a law student, and Lucien, who was adopted. In spite of Émilie's efforts, Berthe is not happy in her daughter's bourgeois home in Blagnac. She sits by the swimming pool in the middle of the night talking to herself and finds the house pretentious. Worried about her mother's physical and mental health, Émilie pays a visit to her unmarried younger brother, Antoine, a neurosurgeon. They have not seen each other for three years, since they quarreled at their father's funeral. Émilie informs Antoine of their mother's condition and invites him to Christmas dinner with the family. On Christmas Eve, Antoine arrives at his sister's home as Émilie, Bruno and Anne are leaving for midnight mass. Antoine urges himself not to get carried away and spoil the evening. As he wanders through the house looking for his mother, he surprises Lucien, who works at a nightclub in town, making out with Khadija, Émilie and Bruno's Moroccan secretary, who has been invited to spend Christmas with the family. Antoine promises not to tell anything. When he finds his mother's room, Berthe is delighted to see him, but complains about living with Émilie. She dislikes Bruno, has no affection for the grandchildren and does not value Émilie's efforts to put her at ease. Dinner is lively, but after the youngsters leave for Lucien's room, tempers flare between Bruno and Antoine and they exchange blows. Antoine leaves with a bloody nose and Berthe departs with him. Talking later with Bruno, Émilie says she loathes what they have become. Anne is distraught by the family's dispute and looks to Khadija for solace.