Film Summary

France, 1770. Marianne, a painter, is commissioned to do the wedding portrait of Héloïse, a young woman who has just left the convent. Héloïse is a reluctant bride to be and Marianne must paint her without her knowing. She observes her by day, to paint her secretly.

Rated R for nudity and sexuality

Isabelle Cata is a professor of French at Grand Valley State University since 1993. Her areas of expertise are the literature of the Nineteenth, Twentieth and Twenty-first centuries both in France and in the French-Speaking world. She wrote two books: "Siddhartha ou la naissance d'un écrivain: Victor Segalen" (2008) and "Une réflexion critique sur l'oeuvre de Kama Sywor Kamanda: La Quête du rêve absolu: Recréer le monde, pénétrer l'infini, mesurer le néant" (2015 and 2019), and many articles on various French and Francophone writers. She loves poetry and music, and in normal times, organizes "Mélodies" on campus for lovers of French poetry and song, and "Le Pot Franco" a monthly happy hour for former students, local teachers and professors of French and fluent French speakers in the community.