All bets are off in the explosive debut feature from co-writer/director Marie Monge, Treat Me Like Fire, as she captures a passionate affair between two lovers intoxicated with the highs and lows of the adrenaline-fueled Parisian underground gambling scene. While waiting tables in her family’s café, blasé twentysomething Ella (Stacy Martin) can’t help but be charmed by the handsome stranger, Abel (Tahar Rahim) and his joie de vivre. When she is seduced by Abel’s first love of gambling, it awakens a fervent desire in the formerly straight-laced waitress to ante up. Abandoning her family’s business for her new lover, Ella enters a dangerous world of smoke-filled subterranean lairs where every major loss means a chance to win even more. But when the two find themselves in the crosshairs of local thugs, Ella begins to see the dark side of her conman lover and must find the means to survive or bust.

Director Marie Monge