Priscilla (2023), 35 mm

Based on Priscilla Presley's memoirs "Elvis and Me", Sofia Coppola tells a tragic love story in captivating images. As a Swiss premiere, we are showing the film on 35 mm - "In Celluloid We Trust"!

Friedberg, 1959: Fourteen-year-old Priscilla Beaulieu (Cailee Spaeny) meets Elvis Presley (Jacob Elordi) at a party. Like her stepfather, the King of Rock 'n' Roll is stationed at a military base in Germany. Homesickness connects the two, and despite a big age difference, they become a couple. At the age of seventeen, Priscilla moves to Elvis' estate in Memphis. Soon she is the woman at the side of the greatest music star, locked behind the bars of Graceland.

After Baz Luhrmann's glittering ELVIS, Sofia Coppola is now focussing on the story of Priscilla Presley. Told consistently from the perspective of the protagonist, it is a love story that is as romantic as it is dark. As in Coppola's debut THE VIRGIN SUICIDES, the sixties and seventies become a constricting corset in this coming-of-age drama. Jacob Elordi plays Elvis convincingly, but the deserved star of the film is Cailee Spaeny. She gives her character the necessary complexity and moves stylishly through the captivatingly composed decors.

For a characteristic look, parts of the film were shot on 16 mm (with a Bolex camera!) and Super 8. Like her colleagues Christopher Nolan and Paul Thomas Anderson, it was an important artistic decision for Sofia Coppola to shoot with analogue material and to show the film in analogue cinemas. To mark the start of our new "In Celluloid We Trust" programme, we are presenting PRISCILLA on a 35 mm print as a Swiss premiere - cinema at its best.