Premiere Run!

Friday, November 21 – Tuesday, November 25

The Brattle is thrilled to bring you the impeccably designed new film from enigmatic French auteur Lucile Hadzihalilovic (Innocence, Evolution) which deservedly won the award for Outstanding Artistic Contribution at this year’s Berlin Film Festival. In the early ’70s, teenage runaway Jeanne (Pacini) takes refuge on the soundstage where a cinematic adaptation of the fairy tale The Snow Queen is being shot. She quickly falls under the spell of its star, Cristina (Cotillard), an imperious actress in the Garbo/Dietrich mold who is just as mysterious and alluring as the Queen she is playing. Inspired by the work of Victor Erice, Powell & Pressburger, Cocteau, Argento, and Von Sternberg, THE ICE TOWER is a phantasmagoric evocation that merges reality, filmmaking, and dreamtime to describe the interweaving fates of the two women. – adapted from notes for Yellow Veil Pictures

“A twisted retro fairytale that sits somewhere between Frozen and Mulholland Drive.” – The Hollywood Reporter

“Femininity exerts a powerfully unsettling pull in the work of Lucile Hadžihalilović, a French auteur who’s never made a film of such coruscating, crystalline beauty as THE ICE TOWER, a hypnotic meditation on the enchantment that develops between an impressionable teenage runaway and the imperious film actress whose set she stumbles first onto.” – Isaac Feldberg, RogerEbert.com