She’s unsure of how many more films she will even make.

“I don’t know,” she said, more seriously. “Everything we know about each other enabled us to discover new things about ourselves on that project.”Īsked whether she and Haenel will continue working together into old age, like Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro, Sciamma cracked, “I hope we will age without CGI”-a reference to The Irishman. As an actor, I think she was willing to try new stuff,” Sciamma said. The film was a risk for me-it was departing from my comfort zone. “Working with somebody you know that well isn’t just about, ‘You wrote that character that’s perfect for her…’ It’s a matter of trust and it means that you’re going to take the risk-and the risk wasn’t working together.

“The film has no secrets, you know? We were of course aware of the layers, always.”Īs for the question of whether conflicts arise when working with an ex, especially on such an intimate project, Sciamma was firm: “That was the most peaceful, my most serene shooting experience, I must say. That was really fun, actually, to be playing with these layers,” admitted Sicamma, acknowledging that the public nature of her and Haenel’s relationship gives the film interesting dimension. And the DP was looking…we were basically Russian dolling. “Even the dynamic of the sets was really, because we were in the workshop with the painter who was looking at Adèle, and I was looking at the painter looking at Adèle. (Last month, Ruggia was charged by Paris prosecutors with “sexual assaults on a 15-year-old minor by a person having authority.” Ruggia has denied the accusations, but asked for Haenel’s forgiveness if there had been errors in his conduct toward her.) Speaking last year to Mediapart, Haenel said, “We had a long and beautiful love affair together.” The actor said that their relationship helped her recover from a traumatic experience she had with The Devils director Christophe Ruggia’s as a teenager, where she said the filmmaker sexually harassed her. “And above all, I wanted to thank…I wanted to thank Céline…because…because I love her, voilà,” Haenel said, trembly with emotion, in a coming-out that was largely missed by press. After filming, Sciamma and Haenel became romantically involved-and when Haenel won the supporting-actress César in 2014, for her role in Katell Quillévéré’s Suzanne, she ended her speech by declaring her love for Sciamma onstage. The director and the actor met while collaborating on 2007’s Water Lilies-a coming-of-age film set in the world of synchronized swimming. The film dispels the myth of the one-dimensional relationship between artist and muse, making Marianne and Héloïse reciprocal collaborators-their cumulative love and art entangled.īut Portrait of a Lady on Fire takes on new dimension upon discovering that it was born from a creative and former romantic relationship as complex as the one depicted onscreen-one between Sciamma and Haenel. Set in coastal Brittany in the 18th century, the film tracks the slow-burning romance between a portraitist, Marianne ( Noémie Merlant), and the woman she has been commissioned to paint, Héloïse ( Adèle Haenel). Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire is a heart-shattering love story.

Portrait of a lady on fire