At 22, the gifted and singular actress Isild Le Besco can already claim an extensive career in French cinema. At 14, she starred in "La Puce," Emmanuelle Bercot's short film about a girl's first sexual experience. A couple of years later, she was playing the love interest in Benoît Jacquot's "Sade" and Cédric Kahn's "Robert Succo." And by 18, Ms. Le Besco, was writing and directing "Demi-Tarif," shot with a digital camera mostly in the apartment where she grew up, in a working-class Paris neighborhood. Opening here this summer, it follows three children, largely abandoned by their mother, who make do on their own. Leslie Camhi reports in the New York Times (free subscription required to view).