Cinéma : Marie-Antoinette de Sophia Coppola

A2c/RegArts Women’s Festival – 2006 film (marking the 20th anniversary of the film’s release) directed by Sophia Coppola, starring Kirsten Dunst and Jason Schwartzman – Running time: 2 hours – The film is very loosely based on the life of Marie-Antoinette, Archduchess of Austria, Dauphine and later Queen of France following her marriage to the future Louis XVI. The film chronicles her life from April 1770 to 5 and 6 October 1789. The film was entered into the competition for the Palme d’Or at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the French Ministry of Education Award. Marie-Antoinette, the youngest of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria’s daughters, is a beautiful, charming and naive young Archduchess. In 1770, as the only one of the Empress’s daughters not yet married and at the age of just fourteen, she was sent to France by her mother to marry the Dauphin of the kingdom, the future Louis XVI, in order to forge an alliance between the two rival countries. On her arrival in France, Marie-Antoinette is stripped of all her mementoes from Austria, including her pet dog, and meets King Louis XV as well as Louis-Auguste, her future husband. They arrived at the Palace of Versailles, where they were married. They were urged to produce an heir to the throne as quickly as possible, but the following day, it was reported to the king that nothing had happened on their wedding night.