Filmmaker Celine Sciamma (Girlhood) returns with the period drama Portrait of a Lady on Fire set on an isolated island off the French coast in 1760.
Marianne, a painter, is commissioned to do the wedding portrait of Heloise, a young lady who has just left the convent and is the reluctant bride to be. The catch? Marianne must paint Heloise without her knowing – observing her by day and secretly painting her at night.
Intimacy and attraction grow between the two women as they share Heloise’s first and last moments of freedom, all whilst Marianne paints the portrait that will end it all. Adele Haenel and Valeria Golino star.
Portrait of a Lady on Fire took home both Best Screenplay and the Queer Palm at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.