Colette is widely seen as a pioneer in women's rights.

Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, French writer and performer was a turn-of-the-century woman ahead of her time. Known simply as Colette, as she would become known - is a boundary-smashing figure fit for the 21st-century generation.

She remains one of France's most famous writers, she was nominated for the Nobel prize in literature six years before her death in 1954.

Colette is best remembered for her 1944 novella Gigi and as the true author of the Claudine novels, which took turn-of-the-century Paris by storm (though Colette did not gain full credit for these novels until many years after their success).

A weights-lifter who appeared on the cover of athletic magazines, Colette scandalised society by having relationships with both women and men (in her forties she even became romantically involved with her 16-year-old stepson), and upon her death in 1954 she became the first French female writer to be given a state funeral.

But director Wash Westmoreland (Still Alice) - working from a script he wrote with his late husband Richard Glatzer and Rebecca Lenkiewicz - has rightly refused to fashion a stuffy biopic out of Colette's life; "Colette was a brilliant prose stylist," says Wash Westmoreland, "and to read her is to come in contact with a great personality".

Wine and snacks are provided at 6.30pm with the film starting at 7pm this Thursday.