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Seraphine (PG)

• Consumer Advice: Contains infrequent mild sex references and scenes of emotional distress
• Run time: 2 hours 6 mins

• Language: French
• Genre: Drama
• Release date: 27th November 2009

• Starring: Yolande Moreau, Ulrich Tuker, Anne Bennent
• Directed by: Martin Provost

• Official Website: http://www.metrodomegroup.com/films/seraphine
• Distributor: Metrodome Distribution

Plot Synopsis

1912. Seraphine Louis, 42, lives in Senlis, a small town fifty kilometres outside Paris. She earns a living doing household chores and cleaning. In her spare time, Seraphine paints. She works as a maid for Madame Duphot, who rents an apartment to a German art critic and dealer, Wilhelm Uhde, an enthusiastic advocate of modern and ‘primitive’ artists

At a dinner party given by Madame Duphot, Wilhelm comes across a small painting that Seraphine bought over a few days previously. Mesmerized, he snaps it up and insists that Seraphine show him the rest of her work. He buys it all and encourages her to continue developing her talent.

The Great War breaks out. Uhde is forced to flee France and abandon Seraphine. During the fighting, through famine, poverty and harsh winters, Seraphine never stops painting.

1927. Back in France, Wilhelm Uhde now lives in Chantilly, not far from Senlis, with his sister Anne-Marie and his companion Helmut. At Anne-Marie’s insistence, he visits an exhibition of amateur painters in Senlis where, at the far end of one of the rooms, he glimpses huge shimmering, mystical canvases. Wilhelm immediately recognises Seraphine’s style. Overcome with emotion, he decides to take the elderly woman under hi swing once more.

In the next few years, Seraphine paints her most inspired works and sells many of them but gradually loses her reason.