Screening times:
Saturday, April 11, 8:30 PM
Céline Sciamma | France | 2019 | 120m
French with English subtitles
We’re screening Sciamma on Saturday nights all through April! Films include Tomboy, Portrait of a Lady on Fire and Petite Maman.
Set in 18th century France, Marianne, a young painter, is commissioned to paint a wedding portrait of a young noblewoman and reluctant bride to be, Héloïse. Knowing that Héloïse has just come out of a convent and has previously refused to sit for portraits, Marianne disguises herself as the lady’s companion by day in order to paint her portrait from memory by night.
Intimacy and attraction grow between the two women, they ignite in each other feelings that are passionate yet forbidden. As they share Héloïse’s first and last moments of freedom, all whilst Marianne paints the portrait that will end it all. Drawing on the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, director Céline Sciamma flips the male gaze in Hitchcock’s retelling of this myth in his film Vertigo and presents a film that is based entirely on the female gaze: a gaze of artistic appropriation, of inquisition, and of unstoppable desires.
"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 Breenblatt, Entertainment Weekly
"Even without showing men onscreen, Sciamma depicts the myriad ways in which the patriarchy constricts the lives of her female protagonists." - Rachel Syme, The New Yorker
"By the time the final heartbreaking, all-a-flutter sequence plays out to the strains of Vivaldi, it's been a remarkable sensory journey." - Tara Brady, Irish Times
WINNER: Best Screenplay, Queer Palm - Cannes Film Festival, 2019
WINNER: Best Foreign Language Film - New York Film Critics Online, 2019
WINNER: Best Actress, Best Cinematography - Lumiére Awards, 2020
Tickets $12 ($11.40 at the door if available)
