The Ape Woman is based on the true story of 19th-century carnival performer Julia Pastrana. In Ferreri’s film, an extraordinary Annie Girardot delivers an elegant and devastating performance as Maria ‘the ape woman’, a covent scullery maid whose body is covered in hair, from head to toe. Her life is uprooted when an unscrupulous hustler, discovers and marries her in order to get her on the freak show circuit and cash in on her distinctive appearance.

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