The Piano

Plot

When an arranged marriage brings Ada and her spirited pre-teen daughter Flora to the wilderness of 19th-century New Zealand, she finds herself locked in a battle of wills with both her controlling husband and a rugged frontiersman to whom she develops a forbidden attraction.

About The Piano

The Piano is a 1993 historical romance film written and directed by Jane Campion. It stars Holly Hunter, Harvey Keitel, Sam Neill, and Anna Paquin in her first major acting role. The film focuses on a mute Scottish woman who travels to a remote part of New Zealand with her young daughter after her arranged marriage to a settler. The plot has similarities to Jane Mander's 1920 novel, The Story of a New Zealand River, but also substantial differences. Campion has cited the novels Wuthering Heights and The African Queen as inspirations. An international co-production between New Zealand, Australia and France, The Piano premiered at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival on May 15, 1993, where it won the Palme d'Or, rendering Campion the first female director to achieve that distinction (and as of 2026, one of the only three female directors to do so, along with Julia Ducournau for Titane and Justine Triet for Anatomy of a Fall). It was a commercial success, grossing US$140.2 million worldwide against its US$7 million budget. The film was also noted for its crossover appeal beyond the arthouse circuit in attracting mainstream popularity, largely due to rave reviews and word of mouth. The Piano earned numerous accolades, including three Academy Awards (for Hunter as Best Actress, Paquin as Best Supporting Actress, and Campion for Best Original Screenplay), a WGA Award, a Golden Globe Award…

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

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