With this sublime fable of desire and creativity, Jane Campion became the first woman to win a Palme d’Or at Cannes.

Electively mute Ada (Holly Hunter) and her spirited daughter (Anna Paquin, in her Oscar®-winning debut) arrive on the shores of 19th century New Zealand, piano in tow, only for Ada to become locked in a triangular battle of wills with her controlling husband (Sam Neill) and rugged frontiersman (Harvey Keitel), in this virtuoso portrait of silent defiance of patriarchy.

Campion’s searing drama was the final film watched by Kurt Cobain, who watched the new release in the theatre with friends after dinner, the night before his death.

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