Making Marie Antoinette Brings 80 Hours of Versailles Footage to New York

Sofia Coppola has finished the film her mother started at Versailles twenty years ago.

Making Marie Antoinette, a feature documentary about the making of Coppola’s 2006 film Marie Antoinette, is playing in the Spotlight section of the New York Film Festival, according to Variety. The Spotlight strand is the festival’s showcase for notable new films outside the main competition.

The documentary is built from 80 hours of footage shot by Coppola’s late mother, Eleanor Coppola, during production on location at the Palace of Versailles. Eleanor Coppola, herself a director, filmed quietly alongside the main shoot. She died in 2024 at age 87.

Sofia Coppola completed the material with editor Aaron Matthews. Actor Diane Lane narrates the film, reading from Eleanor Coppola’s contemporaneous diary entries written twenty years ago.

The original film starred Kirsten Dunst as the French queen and Jason Schwartzman, Coppola’s cousin, as King Louis XVI. Released in 2006, Marie Antoinette met mixed reviews and modest box office returns on release and is now regarded as a cult classic. Its look was defined by designer Milena Canonero, who created more than 70 original dresses for Dunst and won the Academy Award for Best Costume Design for the film, with Lance Acord as cinematographer.

Festival listings bill Making Marie Antoinette as a New York Premiere, meaning its first screening in the city, at the 64th New York Film Festival. The festival runs from September 25 to October 12, according to FilmLinc. There is a neat symmetry. Coppola’s 2006 Marie Antoinette was presented at NYFF44.

In New York the documentary screens with South of Tehran, a Spotlight Shorts premiere that plays before the main feature. The festival has also programmed a “Talk: Pedro Almodóvar & Sofia Coppola” event linked to the Spotlight selection.

For audiences beyond the festival, the wait is short. Making Marie Antoinette will arrive in theatres on October 23 and on streaming service MUBI on November 6, according to The Film Stage. MUBI UK has framed the release as a celebration of the 20th anniversary of Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette.

What makes this stand out is the chain of hands. One film-maker filmed another at work, mother filmed daughter, and two decades later the daughter cut the result. For fans, this means a return to Versailles with the people who were there the first time.