1999 Madeleine is the first step in an ambitious project by the French filmmaker Laurent Bouhnik to make one film per year between 1999-2009, recounting the turn of the century in an interweaving narrative pattern. Episode one is about Madeline, a lonely woman obsessed by religion and cleanliness. Her solitary existence leads her to place an advertisement for a man willing to share his life with a 'single, working 35-year-old.' She is a woman of our times who is caught between the paradoxes of modern life and individual needs for communication. The world offers her opportunities to satisfy material needs but, unfortunately, this is to the detriment of her spiritual needs.

Madeleine, 35 ans, retoucheuse de son métier, refuse sa solitude et bouscule ses habitudes pour chercher, à travers ses rencontres, l’homme qui pourrait vivre avec elle. La perte de son travail, au lieu de la décourager, va lui donner la force de s’occuper enfin d’elle. Opiniâtre et butée, elle n’aura de cesse de s’ouvrir au monde qu’elle souhaite découvrir et partager.