Sleeping Beauty

Sleeping Beauty is a 2011 Australian erotic psychological drama film written and directed by Julia Leigh in her directorial debut, and starring Emily Browning, Rachael Blake, Ewen Leslie, Peter Carroll, and Chris Haywood. The film follows Lucy, a young female university student who takes up a part-time high-paying job with a mysterious group that caters to rich men and women who like the company of nude sleeping young women. Lucy is required to sleep alongside paying customers and be absolutely submissive to their erotic desires, fulfilling their fantasies by voluntarily entering into physical unconsciousness. The film is loosely based on the novels The House of the Sleeping Beauties and Memories of My Melancholy Whores by Nobel laureates Yasunari Kawabata and Gabriel García Márquez, respectively, as well as on a recurring nightmare Leigh experienced in which she dreamt she was being filmed in her sleep. Filming took place in Sydney in early 2010. Sleeping Beauty premiered at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival as the first Competition entry to be screened. It was the first Australian film in competition at Cannes since Moulin Rouge! (2001). It was released theatrically in Australia on 23 June 2011 by Paramount Pictures and Transmission Films. It received a limited theatrical release in the United States on 2 December 2011 through IFC Films, to mixed reviews.