The art class. The boat ride. Smoking naked in bed. The dress. The cave. The sea. The smouldering looks. The one wild, rapturous night singing ‘We will rise’ by the fire – and the desire that rises after. Reproductive rights and kitchen nights and armpits and oil on canvas and a finger holding the reader’s place in a book. So many unforgettable moments and images come together to make up this truly incendiary film of lesbian desire, like the brushstrokes that make up Marianne’s portraits of Héloïse.

Portrait of a Lady of Fire launched a million yearning hearts on its release in 2019 (when Outburst shared a special festival preview screening at QFT) – although most of us had to watch it on our sofas in spring 2020 while wishing we were isolating on a remote Breton island with Noémie Merlant, Adèle Haenel and Luàna Bajrami.

It’s a wide-eyed, widescreen wonder that deserves to be seen on the cinema screen, and nothing less than a revolution in the possibilities (and the possibility of revolution!) of the queer gaze. Come for the swooning, stay for the more swooning, did we mention that there will be an introduction by Céline Sciamma presenting previously unseen footage from the shoot?

Text by So Mayer.

On sale Mon 21 Sep at 11am.