The first film from the French Film Festival to be given wide release, JEANNE DU BARRY is a classic costume drama of grand scale.

Selected as the Opening Night Gala screening of last year’s Cannes Film Festival, JEANNE DU BARRY, written, directed by, and starring Maïwenn, is a passionate palimpsest history freely inspired by the life of sassy social climber and consummate courtesan, Jeanne Vaubernier, a working-class woman born of a cook and a monk, who became the mistress of King Louis XV.

Born with nothing, aspiring to everything, young Jeanne had an unquenchable thirst for knowledge and was an avid reader, a pursuit that increased her appetite for culture and pleasure.

Expelled from a convent and possessed of charm and sharp wit, she builds a reputation as a skilled courtesan and her benefactor, the Comte du Barry grows rich through her amorous encounters. The Comte orchestrates a meeting through the influential Duke of Richelieu to pimp Jeanne to the king.

For Jeanne and Louis, it’s intoxication at first sight, sparking a scandal of right royal proportion. Soon the King anoints her as his new favourite. Audaciously ignoring propriety and etiquette, with the help of his valet La Borde – a scene stealing Benjamin Lavernhe – Louis moves her into his Versailles palace, creating derision and division within his family and the court.

JEANNE DU BARRY teems with pomp and circumstance, of court intrigues and rituals, of basic human desire and base human jealousy. It also boasts a brilliant score by Oscar winning composer, Stephen Warbeck.

Sumptuously filmed in 35mm on location in Versailles by Laurent Dailland, with a superb production design by Angelo Zamparutti and gorgeous costumes by Jurgen Doering, JEANNE DU BARRY is a visual feast and quite a regal return to the screen by Johnny Depp, as the smitten monarch.