Centre Méditerranéen de Création Cinématographique

Delphine Seyrig plays a middle-aged woman coping with an ungovernable present and holding out hopes of escaping to a more pleasant past. She leaves her current residence to retreat to her provincial French hometown. Here she dreams of locating and rekindling an old love. Seyrig is less inscrutable here than in her debut feature-film appearance Last Year in Marienbad (61), though the character is just as complex and difficult to please. Grain of Sand was released in France in 1983 as Le Grain de Sable.

Le Château Bovis is a cluster of houses on the slope of the hill at L'Estaque, facing due south toward the vast expanse of Marseille’s harbour. Overlooking the large dry docks and the vista of the industrial port, a long esplanade stretches across almost its entire length, confronting the void. Numerous windows open out onto the sea.