Award winner Angelina Jolie faced one of her deepest fears on screen for the French film Couture - being diagnosed with ​cancer. Based on the personal experiences of writer and director Alice Winocour, Jolie plays fictional American filmmaker Maxine Walker, who, while producing a film to accompany a runway show for Paris Fashion Week, discovers she has breast cancer.

Jolie's mother, Marcheline Bertrand, died of breast cancer at the age ​of 56, and Jolie underwent a double mastectomy in 2013 after discovering she ​was carrying the same genetic mutation as her mother. "I thought often of my mother and how much I think this film would have been wonderful for ​her when she was going through this," she told Reuters.

Alongside Jolie, the cast ​of Couture includes Ada, played by Anyier Anei, who is a model struggling with the fashion industry putting her on a pedestal, and make-up artist Angele, ​played by Ella Rumpf, who is trying to break out of ​the fashion scene by becoming a writer. Jolie hopes that each character’s story will resonate with viewers.

"I think what we found in doing this, and hopefully what the audience will feel, is that we're connected," the ​51-year-old said. "We're connected as human beings, and we ​all go through something... And it's very necessary to pull us all through being human,” Jolie added.