Katherine Brooks on "Loving Annabelle"

"When I was 17 years old, I was with someone who was 30," recalls director Katherine Brooks about a past relationship.

Call it what you will, but art semi-imitating life might be the most appropriate description for Brooks' new film, c, the story of Catholic-boarding-school teacher Simone Bradley, who has an affair with a 17-year-old student. Inspired by the 1931 German film Maedchen in Uniform - and, perhaps, a bit of the director's own experiences - Loving Annabelle, now available on DVD, gives a modern twist to a controversial classic.

Fascinated by the idea of a romantic teacher-student relationship, Brooks wrote the script for Loving Annabelle - which she maintains is not autobiographical; her youthful tryst was not with a teacher - while directing such popular reality programs as Newlyweds, The Osbournes and The Simple Life. At that time, she discloses, a high profile teacher/student scandal was saturating the media - and affecting attitudes on the sets of the shows.

"I observed how judgmental people were about a situation they were not directly involved in - how the teacher would be made out to be the villain," Brooks says. "This struck a bone with me because I thought to myself, how can you judge a situation that you are not directly involved with? I knew I had to try and make a film where you had sympathy for the teacher and actually wanted [the teacher and student] together, despite the circumstance and age difference."

Generally an age difference wouldn't matter much, but in the case of Simone and Annabelle, it does. In the minds of many who will watch the film, Annabelle may seem still a child at 17 years old. That fact, combined with the sexual nature of the girl's relationship with her 30-something teacher, begs a very important question: Is the adult teacher, Simone, a pedophile for allowing a romantic relationship to blossom?

Brooks doesn't think so.

"I don't see Simone as a pedophile," she contends. "Simone does not seduce her student; the student seduces Simone. I see Simone as a deeply compassionate and kind woman who is in a difficult situation. She resists for as long as she can, but things happen. Moments happen. Connections happen that are beyond our rational mind."

Along those lines, Brooks also believes that because the main characters are female, their gender affords the relationship a completely different - and generally more acceptable - dynamic. It's a dynamic that would be perceived arguably more adversely if the characters were male.

"I think that most would see a women and girl connect in more of an 'emotional' way, a mother-figure type of relationship like in Maedchen in Uniform," says the director. "The man and boy [would be viewed] in a more 'sexual' way."

"And it's hard to call Annabelle a girl," she continues. "She is clearly very mature for her age. That's why I made Annabelle and Simone connect on a more sexual level. I'm tired of seeing the mother-figure movies; I wanted something more primal, hence why I made the sex scene the way it is: Very raw, very real and very hot!"

While the age difference and sexuality of Loving Annabelle's main characters are sure to hit a few nerves, add the backdrop of Catholicism to the equation and out comes a triple whammy of contentious subject matter that defies conventional filmmaking.

"When I started writing the script, it just naturally flowed in that direction," Brooks says about the film's religious symbolism. "I would ask myself in the beginning stages of writing, who is Simone and what kind of teacher is she? Those questions led me to the thought of a teacher being emotionally shut down, which led me somehow to Catholicism."

With Loving Annabelle, Brooks is pushing the envelope in terms of what's acceptable and what's not in today's diverse society. Annabelle and Simone's relationship establish serious questions about what we, as humans, are willing to recognize as legitimate and legal - the answers to which will be different for every individual. But what Brooks would like to suggest when considering and personally debating these perplexities is that relegating oneself to restrictive thinking creates a culture of closed-mindedness that works against the sanctity of progressiveness.

"It's my observation that most of us live in fear," she says. "Fear that you could actually be in a similar situation or experience similar feelings that go against everything you thought was wrong. If we shifted that towards unconditional love, a movie like Loving Annabelle would just be another love story."