The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire

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The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire

2025

1h 14m

Biography

Drama

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87%

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15 Reviews

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An actress, three months post-partum, reads through fragments of the archive of Suzanne Césaire as she prepares to perform excerpts of the writer's work.

Jonathan Romney

Financial Times

Jul 19

3/5

This succinct, elliptical feature by American filmmaker and visual artist Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich is not so much about its subject as it is a cinematic song or poem for her.

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Peter Bradshaw

Guardian

Jul 14

3/5

If this chamber-piece film is a little opaque, perhaps that is because Césaire herself is opaque.

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William Repass

Slant Magazine

Jun 1

2.5/4

This film essay ultimately argues unconvincingly against art’s right to imagination.

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Nick Hasted

The Arts Desk

Jul 22

3/5

Hunt-Erlich anyway conveys forest stillness, and something of the intellectual and ecological atmosphere of Césaire’s life, the landscape in which she moved. Saturated 16mm film adds to this tangibility even as...the director’s subject stays elusive.

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Amber Wilkinson

Eye for Film

Jul 22

3.5/5

The word ballad is a good choice in the title because Hunt-Ehrlich’s film is a rhythms and muse affair.

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Marya E. Gates

Cool People Have Feelings, Too. (Substack)

Jun 14

The film uses fragments of her extant work and letters to paint a portrait of a woman who lived for her moment, and often critiqued its inequality with razor sharp insights. All of this is given an otherworldly, lyrical haze by cinematographer Alex Ashe.

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Synopsis

An actress, three months post-partum, reads through fragments of the archive of Suzanne Césaire as she prepares to perform excerpts of the writer's work.

Director: Madeleine Hunt Ehrlich
Producer: Sophie Luo, Mike S. Ryan
Screenwriter: Madeleine Hunt Ehrlich, Madeleine Hunt Ehrlich
Distributor: The Cinema Guild
Genre: Biography, Drama
Original Language: French
Release Date (Theaters): Jun 6, 2025, Limited
Runtime: 1h 14m