Cast

Yolande Moreau, Ulrich Tukur, Anne Bennent, Geneviéve Mnich, Nico Rogner, Serge Larivière, Francoiçe Lebrun, Lena Bréban, Francis Lacloche, Corenton Lobet

Film description

Winner of multiple Cesar awards, this low-key biographic film is an extraordinary story about Séraphine de Senlis, the primitivist painter. The film is set in the first half of the 20^th century. The simple, elderly woman leads a double life - at day toiling as a servant, at night painting in a mystical elation. She paints mainly floral compositions, guided, as she says herself, by an angel and the Holy Mary. For Séraphine - a deeply religious, oversensitive outsider - painting is so natural as breathing or hugging trees. Her talent was discovered by accident - for some time Séraphine cleaned the room of Wilhelm Uhde, promoter of naive painting, the first person to appreciate her art. Martin Provost's film speaks about the universalism of the language of art, about mutual closeness of inspiration, mysticism and madness. The director offers low-key cinema, a moving and unforgettable piece with painting-like frames that can be contemplated like pictures. This film, whose success coincided with an exposition of paintings by Séraphine de Senlis in the Parisian Maillol museum, marked the beginning of a renaissance of interest in the works of the entirely forgotten artist.

Mirella Napolska

A retrospective of Brothers Quay, the authors of such films as The Institute Benjamenta and The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes, will be presented at the 10^th IFF ENH.