SPOTLIGHT FILM
WINNER: Best Screenplay and Queer Palm awards at this year's Cannes Film Festival.
A superbly elegant and exquisite French period drama, called "as perfect a film as any to have premiered this year."
Set in 18th-century Brittany, a young painter, Marianne (Noémie Merlant), is commissioned to to do the wedding portrait of a reluctant bride-to-be Héloïse (Adèle Haenel), without her knowing. Thus, the artist must observe her model by day to paint her portrait at night. So Marianne escorts Héloïse on walks, posing as a hired companion while closely observing her subject so as to render her likeness on canvas in secret. Day by day, the two women become closer as they share the bride’s last moments of freedom before the impending wedding.
Gorgeously captured by cinematographer Claire Mathon, this devastatingly unforgettable story of love and memory 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. French writer-director Céline Sciamma uses this stirring love story to apprehend what it means to truly see — and to truly be seen.
OFFICIAL SELECTION:Toronto International Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Jerusalem Film Festival
Sponsored by: Unitarian Universalist Congregation at Shelter Rock
