Céline Sciamma's mesmerizing historical drama follows the slowly simmering love affair of two women from distant worlds. Winner of the Queer Palm and Best Screenplay Award at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival and voted one of the greatest films of all time in Sight & Sound's 2022 critics' poll.
Brittany, France, 1760. Marianne (Noémie Merlant), a painter, is commissioned to do the wedding portrait of Héloïse (Adèle Haenel), a young lady who has just left the convent. Héloïse is a reluctant bride-to-be, and Marianne must paint her without her knowing, observing her by day and secretly painting 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. [122 min; drama, romance; French with English subtitles]
Programmed by IU Cinema Front-of-House Staff Member Julia Jeffries.
"Once in a while there is a work of art so specific, so complex, so new in its oldness and old in its newness, that it moves the craft, our craft, to another level of seeing." — Drew Gregory, Autostraddle
"There's almost no single moment in Portrait of a Lady on Fire that couldn't be captured, mounted, and hung on a wall as high art." — Leah Greenblatt, Entertainment Weekly
"Every artist begins with a blank canvas. It is what they do with it that defines them. With Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Céline Sciamma has painted her masterpiece." — Dallas King, Flick Feast
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