Olivia

1951, France, 96m, 2K DCP Restoration

Showtimes & Tickets

Screened June 11, 2023

A seven-decades-standing cinematic landmark, via a pioneering French female director, of lesbian representation; the dreamily romantic movie itself unfolds decades prior, at a 19th-century finishing school where English enrollee Olivia (played by [Marie-]Claire Olivia) is stirred by both her headmistress (French stage icon Edwige Feuillère, whose performance earned a BAFTA Award nomination) and her teacher (Simone Simon of the original Cat People). Based on a novella by Dorothy Bussy (credited as “Olivia”), who dedicated it to Virginia Woolf.

In French with English subtitles.

An Icarus Films / Distrib Films US release. 

A film by Jacqueline Audry

“A compound of velvet innuendos—polite, discreet and finely wrought.”

The New York Times

“Olivia belongs in discussions with Death in Venice, Maurice, and Carol in great film adaptations of queer literature.”

Hyperallergic