Main Cast: Emmanuelle Devos, Suzanne Clément, Richard Berry

Emmanuelle Blachey is a 40-something senior executive working in the renewable energy sector. She’s an ambitious team leader, quick on her feet and unafraid to make tough decisions. Married for 20 years and a mother of 2 children, Emmanuelle’s success appears to be consummate. However, all the perceived certainties come into focus when a powerful and influential women’s network ask her to run for CEO of a major French company. In looking to become the first French woman to crash through the glass ceiling, the risks, challenges and sacrifices that she faces are brilliantly teased out by director, Tonie Marshall.

What makes her movie exceptional is the way in which Marshall matches the personal motivation with the existing reality: Emmanuel doesn’t decide to accept the challenge to advance the cause of women in business, she does it because she has a vision and an inner belief, fully understanding the limitations of her ascent to power; this allows Number One to rise above polemic and present a story which is not only timely and thought-provoking, but remarkably insightful also. This is one the best films of the year with a superb central performance from Emanuelle Devos; we are thrilled that Tonie Marshall will be in Kilkenny to present the weekend screenings.