NIKI
starring CHARLOTTE LE BON from WHITE LOTUS
A film by Celine Sallette
The extraordinary rise of Iconic French Artist Niki de Saint Phalle.
A portrait of courage, creativity, and healing.
Selected for Un Certain Regard at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, NIKI is the luminous debut of Céline Sallette — an intimate, powerful portrait of one of contemporary art’s most iconoclastic figures. Sculptor, painter, filmmaker, and feminist icon, Niki de Saint-Phalle lived as fearlessly as she created. But who was Niki before the world knew her name?
1952: Escaping the suffocating grip of McCarthy-era America, young Niki (Charlotte Le Bon, WHITE LOTUS) arrives in Paris with her husband Harry (John Robinson), seeking freedom in the bohemian heart of Europe. Between motherhood, modeling, and acting, Niki searches for meaning — yet childhood traumas linger, and the roles she’s been given fail to quiet the voices within.
Talent and pain are two sides of the same coin. When Niki is forced to confront her buried past, her art is born — explosive, uncontainable, and revolutionary.
With a bold yet empathetic gaze, Sallette casts light on the silent suffering women endured under the guise of medicine, and the power of art to transform private wounds into public triumph. NIKI is not just a biopic — it’s a visceral, celebratory testament to resilience, reinvention, and the unstoppable force of creation.
QUOTES
“A raw, emotional performance from Charlotte Le Bon dominates a film that gradually reveals the way in which art becomes a way of conquering trauma and finding a voice for this ground breaking mid-century sculptor.”
SCREEN INTERNATIONAL
“Charlotte Le Bon packs a lot into her magnificent portrait of iconic French-American artist Niki de Saint Phalle. [Le Bon] is excellent, bringing the multitude of personality types – mother, spontaneous thinker, intellectual and gun enthusiast to the big screen.”
DMOVIES
“Actress and director Céline Sallette directs a Niki de Saint Phalle biopic as shimmering as the artist's works.”
SORTIR A PARIS
