The first film directed by a woman to receive the Queer Palm at the Cannes Film Festival, Céline Sciamma’s 18th-century romance revels in the sensuous affair between aristocrat Héloïse (Adèle Haenel) and artist Marianne (Noémie Merlant), who is commissioned to paint her portrait. Though betrothed to a wealthy man of the Milanese upper class, the stubborn Héloïse refuses to be captured, either by her male suitor or the artist meant to paint her. Sciamma’s tale of sexual liberation finds beauty in the electric connection between her leading women for a gorgeous and aching story of forbidden love and the fleeting nature of romance.
