Movies by Adèle Haenel

Portrait of a Lady on Fire

Portrait of a Lady on Fire

On an isolated island in Brittany at the end of the eighteenth century, a female painter is obliged to paint a wedding portrait of a young woman.

Water Lilies

Water Lilies

Set during a sultry summer in a French suburb, Marie is desperate to join the local pool's synchronized swimming team, but is her interest solely for the sake of sport or for a chance to get close to Floriane, the bad girl of the team? Sciamma, and the two leads, capture the uncertainty of teenage sexuality with a sympathetic eye in this delicate drama of the angst of coming-of-age.

House of Pleasures

House of Pleasures

The dawn of the 20th century: L’Apollonide, a luxurious and traditional brothel in Paris, is living its last days. In this closed world, where some men fall in love and others become viciously harmful, the women share their secrets, their fears, their joys and their pains.

Love at First Fight

Love at First Fight

Arnaud, facing an uncertain future and a dearth of choices in a small French coastal town, meets and falls for the apocalyptic-minded Madeleine, who joins an army boot camp to learn military and survival skills to prepare for the upcoming environmental collapse. Intrigued and excited by Madeleine’s wild ideas, Arnaud signs up for the boot camp himself. They soon realize that the boot camp is harder than they’d imagined, but the experience nonetheless cements them together as the couple continues to explore their young love.

Suzanne

Suzanne

The story of a family and a love affair told through the journey of a young woman called Suzanne.

Truffaut au présent

Truffaut au présent

Truffaut au présent is a film divided in three shorts; throughout "Acteurs", "Actrices" and "Couples" we explore François Truffaut's legacy and influence on contemporary French cinema.

Returning to Reims

Returning to Reims

An intimate and political history of the French working class from the early 1950s to the present day.

Deerskin

Deerskin

A man's obsession with owning the designer deerskin jacket of his dreams leads him to turn his back on his humdrum life in the suburbs, blow his life savings, and even turn him to crime.

BPM (Beats per Minute)

BPM (Beats per Minute)

Paris, in the early 1990s: a group of young activists is desperately tied to finding the cure against an unknown lethal disease. They target the pharmaceutical labs that are retaining potential cures, and multiply direct actions, with the hope of saving their lives as well as the ones of future generations.

Pauline

Pauline

A young woman chronicles her childhood of neglect and isolation.

The Bloom of Yesterday

The Bloom of Yesterday

An almost romantic comedy on the edge: Holocaust researcher Toto is having a major life crisis. Just when things at home and work could not get worse, he unwantedly gets a new assistent assigned to himself. Zazie is french, jewish, slightly germanophobe and supposed to help Toto to prepare a major congress. As the star of the congress suddenly wants to pull out, the problems are piling up and the two have to fix it.