OPENING IN US THEATRES IN 2025, FOLLOWED BY A DIGITAL RELEASE.

BEING MARIA

| 2025 – 100′  – Drama, BIOPIC
Written by: Jessica Palud, Laurette Polmanss.
Directed by: Jessica Palud.
Starring: Anamaria Vartolomei, Matt Dillon, Yvan Attal, Marie Gillain, Céleste Brunnquell, Stanislas Merhar, Giuseppe Maggio.
Official Selection Cannes International Film Festival 2024.
Official Competition TAFFF 2024 (North American Premiere).
In French with English subtitles.
A Kino Lorber release. |

It’s the early 1970s. The illegitimate daughter of a French character actor, Maria (Anamaria Vartolomei) is an aspiring young actress, herself. At 19, she miraculously lands the female lead in a groundbreaking feature film by a brilliant up-and-coming Italian director. She’ll be playing opposite one of America’s most formidable movie stars. But what seems like a dream come true turns out to be a nightmare. The actress is Maria Schneider. Her co-star is Marlon Brando. The director is Bernardo Bertolucci. The movie is Last Tango in Paris. A highly erotic art film, its raw depiction of rape and graphic sexuality led to international controversy and drew various levels of censorship around the world. The MPAA gave the film an X rating. Bertolucci and Brando both received suspended two-month prison sentences in Italy. But long before the advent of #MeToo and intimacy counsellors, the real toll of the brutal, intentionally calculated on-set sexual and emotional manipulation fell upon Schneider. It devastated her entire life.