Portrait de la Jeune Fille en Feu
Winner of the Queer Palm and Best Screenplay award at this year’s Festival de Cannes, the new feature from Céline Sciamma (Girlhood) is an intimate and deeply moving period drama.
Brittany, France, 1760. Marianne, a painter, is commissioned to do the wedding portrait of Héloïse, a young woman who has just left the convent. Héloïse is a reluctant bride to be and Marianne must paint her without her knowing. She observes her by day and secretly paints her at night. Intimacy and attraction grow between the two women as they share Héloïse’s first and last moments of freedom, all whilst Marianne paints the portrait that will end it all.
PORTRAIT DE LA JEUNE FILLE EN FEU is a slow burn in which every word, glance, and touch holds the promise of undiscovered territory. The film engages the emotions and the intellect in tandem, as our heroines discuss the purposes of art and life while their love builds from a spark to a blaze. Sciamma uses this stirring love story to apprehend what it means to truly see – and to truly be seen.