Blue Is the Warmest Color is a French drama film written, produced and directed by Abdellatif Kechiche and released in 2013. The movie's title in French is La Vie d'Adèle – "The Life of Adèle". It won the prestigious Palme d'Or – the top prize - at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. In an unusual move for Cannes, the prize was given to the two lead actors as well as the director. The movie is a love story about the relationship between a 15-year-old girl, Adele (played by Adele Exarchopoulos), and her older lover Emma – a blue-haired woman, played by Lea Seydoux. Adele has no doubt that a girl must date boys. However, her life is turned upside down when she meets Emma, who allows her to discover desire and to assert herself as a woman and an adult.
The movie was filmed in 2012 on a budget of €4 million and took five months to complete. The film shocked some critics at Cannes with its long and graphic sex scenes. Justin Chang writing for "Variety" said that the film contains, "the most explosively graphic lesbian sex scenes in recent memory". Robbie Collin of "The Daily Telegraph" wrote: "Kechiche's film is three hours long, and the only problem with that running time is that I could have happily watched it for another seven. It is an extraordinary, prolonged, popping-candy explosion of pleasure, sadness, anger, lust and hope." Steven Spielberg proclaimed: "The film is a great love story that made all of us feel privileged to be a fly on the wall, to see this story of deep love and deep heartbreak evolve from the beginning."
