PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE
(Portrait de la jeune fille en feu)
2019, 119’
Director: Céline Sciamma
Country: France
Distributor: Lucky Red
Language: OV French and Italian, with Italian subtitles
Brittany, 1770. A painter, Marianne (Noémie Merlant), must travel to an island in Brittany to paint the portrait of a young woman, Héloïse (Adèle Haenel), who has just left her convent to replace her sister, who has recently died tragically, as a bride. Héloïse attempts to resist her fate by refusing to pose. On the instructions of Héloïse’s mother (Valeria Golino), Marianne, who is present in the role as a companion, must secretly paint the girl’s portrait. The two women begin to get to know one another and an overpowering and unexpected love arises between them.
Presented in the competition at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the prize for best screenplay, Portrait of a lady on fire is a visually powerful film that takes a love affair as the starting point for a cultural and political discourse centered on the empowerment and emancipation of women.
Nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2020 Golden Globes, it received eight César nominations and a nomination at the Bafta Awards the same year.
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