Portrait of a Lady on Fire
An essential and timeless theme if ever there was one, love naturally holds a special place in cinema. Romantic, sensual, obsessive, ambiguous, forbidden, lighthearted or profound, love on screen is as diverse as the individuals who live its stories. Drawing form different eras, tones, and cinematic styles, this program brings together a selection of remarkable films that will warm your heart from the start of the winter season to Valentine’s Day.
Winner of the Best Screenplay Award and the Queer Palm, 2019 Cannes Film Festival
In 1770, on an isolated island in Brittany, Marianne, a painter, is commissioned to paint the wedding portrait of Héloïse, a young woman who has just left the convent. To resist her destiny, Héloïse refuses to pose. Marianne has to paint her in secret.
Céline Sciamma
Born in France in 1978, Céline Sciamma studied literature before attending the prestigious La Fémis film school, where she specialized in screenwriting. She achieved international success with her first three films, Water Lilies (2007), Tomboy (2011) and Girlhood (2014), which established her as one of the most prominent feminist and queer filmmakers. Her fourth film, Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019), won the Best Screenplay Award at the Cannes Film Festival and sparked significant discussion around the female gaze and the representation of lesbian desire on screen. As a screenwriter, she contributed to Claude Barras’ My Life as a Courgette (2016), André Téchine’s Being 17 (2016), and Jacques Audiard’s Paris, 13th District (2021). Petite Maman, her latest film, was release in 2021.
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