Séraphine (2008)

Based on the life of French painter Séraphine de Senlis.

Director:

Martin Provost

Writers:

Marc Abdelnour, Martin Provost

Stars:

Yolande Moreau, Ulrich Tukur, Anne Bennent

17 wins & 5 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Yolande Moreau	...	Séraphine Louis, dite Séraphine de Senlis
Ulrich Tukur	...	Wilhelm Uhde
Anne Bennent	...	Anne-Marie Uhde
Geneviève Mnich	...	Mme Duphot
Adélaïde Leroux	...	Minouche
Nico Rogner	...	Helmut Kolle
Françoise Lebrun	...	La mère supérieure
Hélène Hardouin	...	La propriétaire
Serge Larivière	...	Duval
Léna Breban	...	Soeur Marguerite (as Léna Bréban)
Sandrine Bodenes	...	Marie-Louise - Wilhelm's cook (as Sandrine Bodènés)
Muriel Riou	...	Berthe - Wilhelm's maid
Dominique Pozzetto	...	Anatole Duphot
Josette Ménard	...	La bouchère
Xavier Pottier	...	Le boucher

Storyline

In 1914, Wilhelm Uhde, a famous German art collector, rents an apartment in the town of Senlis, forty kilometers away from Paris, in order to write and to take a rest from the hectic life he has been living in the capital. The cleaning lady is a rather rough-and-ready forty-year-old woman who is the laughing stock of others. One day, Wilhelm who has been invited by his landlady, notices a small painting lying about in her living room. He is stunned to learn that the artist is no other than Séraphine.

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Plot Keywords:

art | artist | german | painter | painting | 

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Genres:

Biography | Drama

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Certificate:

Unrated

Details

Official Sites:

Official site Official site [jp]

Country:

France Belgium

Language:

French German Latin

Release Date:

1 October 2008 (France)

Also Known As:

Seraphine

Filming Locations:

Cathédrale, Senlis, Oise, France

Box Office

Opening Weekend:

$38,637 (USA) (5 June 2009)

Gross:

$883,270 (USA) (5 March 2010)

Company Credits

Production Co:

TS Productions, France 3 Cinéma, Climax Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

125 min 121 min

Sound Mix:

DTS Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Since the film's release, the number of visitors at the museum of Senlis exhibiting Séraphine's works has quadrupled (August 2009).

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Soundtracks

"Veni Creator Spiritus"
Hymn written by Raban Maure
(9th century)
Sung by Yolande Moreau

User Reviews

What's being naive?

Séraphine was one of these so called common people who in the early 1900s were discovered. The expression "discovered" is not wrong, but that wasn't just about the person, it's was also about another type of seeing and another type of expression.

Séraphine lived a poor and humiliating life like most women of her class. Then this German art collector finds her. But it stops there, because for certain reasons he in the end can't improve her life materially. And the result is disastrous, because it means betrayal of a person, although not of her art.

A silent realistic movie, there you can smell the poverty and despair.