Émilie Dequenne, the acclaimed Belgian actress who won the Best Actress prize at the Cannes Film Festival for her unforgettable film debut, has passed away at the age of 43.
Her long-time agent, Danielle Gain, confirmed to Entertainment Weekly that Dequenne died peacefully on Sunday, March 16, 2025, in a hospital near Paris after battling a rare form of adrenal gland cancer known as adrenocortical carcinoma.
This illness had forced her into a hiatus from acting following the release of her last project, the English-language disaster film Survive in 2024.
A Star Is Born with Rosetta
Born in 1981, Émilie Dequenne rose to international attention as a teenager, shooting to fame with her debut role at just 17 in Rosetta, the critically acclaimed Belgian film by Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne.
In the film, Dequenne portrayed a determined young woman struggling to survive and hold onto a job while living in a caravan park with her alcoholic mother.
Émilie Dequenne (Credit: NBC)
The raw authenticity of her performance won her the prestigious Best Actress award at Cannes in 1999, a landmark victory that placed her alongside cinema legends and announced her as a fresh, powerful presence on the European film scene.
Her competition in that festival was formidable, including renowned actresses such as Catherine Deneuve, Penelope Cruz, Sissy Spacek, and Toni Collette. Dequenne’s win was both a surprise and a signal of a rising star destined to carve her own path in cinema.
A Rich and Varied Career
Over the next two and a half decades, Dequenne built an impressive and diverse career, collaborating with revered directors like André Téchiné and Joachim Lafosse.
In films such as Brotherhood of the Wolf, a striking period horror movie by Christophe Gans, and Catherine Corsini’s The Very Merry Widows, she demonstrated a remarkable range, moving effortlessly between genres and languages.
Dequenne once again won acclaim at Cannes in the Un Certain Regard section for her role in Our Children, a haunting drama about a woman’s psychological deterioration in the run-up to a tragic event. This film sealed her reputation for choosing roles that demanded emotional bravery and complexity.
More recently, her performance in Lukas Dhont’s Close as a grieving mother won wide praise; the film was nominated for Best International Feature at the 2023 Academy Awards. Dequenne captured the delicate balance of warmth and sorrow that the role required, contributing to the film’s profound impact.
Facing Illness with Courage and Grace
In October 2023, Dequenne publicly revealed her diagnosis with a rare cancer of the adrenal gland. Throughout the following months, she used her Instagram account to share updates on her treatment and reflections on the ongoing fight.
Even during this painful chapter, her messages remained filled with hope, humor, and compassion. On World Cancer Day in February 2025, she posted a smiling selfie and wrote, “What a fight! And we don’t choose… All my love to all those who are struggling like me against their will. Take care of yourselves.”
Her honesty and openness offered comfort and solidarity to many facing similar battles, demonstrating her strength not just as an actress but as a person.
International Tributes and Legacy
News of her passing unleashed an outpouring of grief and praise worldwide. Prominent figures in the French and Belgian film communities expressed heartfelt condolences, describing Dequenne as a “remarkable actress” and “an inspiring woman whose light shone brightly.”
Minister of Culture Rachida Dati noted that Dequenne still had much to offer the arts. Fellow actors Marion Cotillard and Eva Green joined fans in honoring her legacy and celebrating the timeless nature of her work.
The Dardenne brothers, who launched her career, spoke poignantly about her early days at Cannes. Jean-Pierre Dardenne recalled her nervousness and determination during filming Rosetta, sharing how she arrived at her audition with high heels and makeup, eager to impress.
Luc Dardenne remarked, “She was far too young; she still had so much ahead of her.”
Beyond the Screen
Despite often portraying intense and emotionally dark characters, Dequenne was known to friends and family as warm, lively, and playful.
In a 2013 interview, she explained this contrast, acknowledging that while her roles may explore painful subjects, her own personality was much lighter and full of humor.
She was also a mother and devoted to her family life. Her experiences as a parent enriched her portrayals of complicated emotional landscapes, adding authenticity and depth.
Continued Influence on European Cinema
Émilie Dequenne’s impact on cinema stretches far beyond awards and accolades. With her debut in Rosetta, she helped bring working-class European struggles to the forefront of international film conversation, influencing how stories about ordinary people could be told with uncompromising honesty.
Her commitment to challenging, meaningful roles inspired a generation of actors and filmmakers eager to break away from conventional storytelling. Dequenne’s legacy is found not only in her performances but in the empathy and courage she brought to every project.
Remembering Émilie Dequenne
As the world remembers Émilie Dequenne, retrospectives of her career and tributes to her life are being planned at festivals and cultural institutions. Her films continue to attract audiences and prompt discussions about the power of cinema to reflect personal and societal truths.
Her journey from a young actress in a Belgian caravan park drama to an internationally acclaimed artist is a story of talent, resilience, and grace, now etched indelibly into film history.
Émilie Dequenne’s artistry and spirit remain a beacon in European cinema. Though her time was cut tragically short, her work and the humanity she shared with the world will endure.
Lucile Hadžihalilović has always treated perception as an act of danger, and The Ice Tower continues that fascination. Loosely inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen, the film reimagines the fairy tale through a poetic, existential frame.
For Jeanne, a 15-year-old orphan played with heartbreaking restraint by Clara Pacini, mirrors are not tools but traps, each reflection turning her reality inside out.
Set in an isolated mountain orphanage, Jeanne’s daily routine unfolds against an eerie quiet. The snow that covers every surface begins to feel more like a curtain than a comfort. Hadžihalilović uses this stillness to create unease.
Jeanne climbs the frozen mountains and stares at distant city lights as if measuring the distance between who she is and who she wishes to become. Her dreams fixate on an ice rink she glimpses from afar, a space shimmering with freedom and artistry, an image that becomes both her salvation and her undoing.
When she slips on a mountain slope and tumbles into a new life, it feels less like an accident and more like a surrender. She follows the glittering lights to the ice rink, where reality bends.
There she encounters Bianca, an elegant skater performed by Valentina Vezzoso, whose grace fascinates Jeanne but whose cold refusal sends her wandering alone. That night, breaking into an abandoned shed, Jeanne dreams of a visit from the Snow Queen herself, played with spectral allure by Marion Cotillard.
From this point, the Ice Tower stops resembling a fairy tale and begins questioning how stories consume the women within them.
Between Fantasy and Film: The Duality of Jeanne
At its surface, Hadžihalilović’s film is a fantasy, but it soon folds upon itself. Jeanne wakes to discover that her magical encounter was part of a film shoot. The queen is not a queen but Cristina, an actress playing a role. This revelation splits the story open.
Jeanne, desperate for identity, slips into Bianca’s life by stealing her identification. When she presents herself to the film crew, they mistake her for the skater, and suddenly Jeanne becomes the person she has envied.
This act of self-reinvention is framed as both liberation and loss. Cristina welcomes her as something between a protégé and a shadow. Their relationship carries the tenderness of mentorship but the toxicity of control. Cotillard plays Cristina with a serene cruelty, beautiful, distant, and quietly manipulative.
Hadžihalilović’s storytelling refuses easy answers. Her pacing is deliberate, sometimes frustratingly so, reflecting the slow current of dreams. But every image invites contemplation.
Through Jonathan Ricquebourg’s cinematography, long corridors resemble frozen veins, half-lit mirrors appear like portals, and snowflakes drift softly across shot windows.
Olivier Messiaen’s haunting score deepens that mood with echoes that seem to breathe in the quiet. The music never overwhelms; instead, it slips beneath the surface, guiding the audience through Jeanne’s fragile awakening.
Each sound and silence builds toward a confrontation that barely arrives, because the truth Hadžihalilović seeks is not found in revelation but in reflection.
Identity, Art, and the Fear of Becoming Someone Else
At its emotional core, The Ice Tower examines how identity is performed, borrowed, and often stolen. Jeanne’s transformation into Bianca is not just a lie; it is an experiment in survival. Without family, she tests whether adopting another’s reflection can fill the void of belonging.
The Ice Tower (Credit: 3B Productions)
For Cristina, who lost her own childhood to ambition and fame, Jeanne becomes a mirror of her younger self. Both characters cling to illusions to escape pain.
This dynamic mirrors films such as Persona or 8½, yet Hadžihalilović avoids psychological acrobatics. She grounds the story in quiet human behavior: lingering glances, withheld words, and gestures that tremble between affection and harm.
The result feels intimate and distant all at once, capturing the paradox of looking too closely at oneself through another’s eyes.
The film also meditates on performance as an act of erasure. Jeanne’s every step toward becoming Bianca strips away a part of her original identity. Her imitation of elegance becomes a prison. The movie’s title, The Ice Tower, embodies that paradox, both majestic and isolating, built from fragile beauty that melts when touched.
By the final act, Jeanne has learned that mirrors can wound as much as they reveal. The set’s artificial decorations, glittering ice walls, and velvet blues, along with projected snow, mirror the emotional artifice of the industry itself.
Hadžihalilović suggests that filmmaking, like the fairy tales it adapts, can distort truth in the pursuit of beauty. Yet within that distortion lies an uncomfortable authenticity: our obsession with self-image often leads to losing the very self we seek to define.
A Beautifully Frozen Reflection on Self-Perception
The Ice Tower resists easy classification. It is part dream, part critique, and part coming-of-age tragedy. Its pace may feel glacial to some viewers, yet within each measured frame lies poetry.
The snow-covered stillness hides a storm of emotion. Jeanne is both a victim and creator of her illusions, and by the film’s final moments, it leaves us unsure whether she has woken from a dream or become part of someone else’s.
Hadžihalilović’s direction remains delicate but exacting. Her command of visual rhythm keeps the film mesmerizing even when the story stands nearly still.
Each reflection, each glance through glass, underscores her thematic obsession: the act of seeing as both discovery and danger. The narrative’s refusal to resolve mirrors the permanence of uncertainty in both youth and art.
What makes The Ice Tower memorable is not its mystery but its invitation to self-confrontation. Every viewer must decide whether Jeanne has found freedom or simply another form of enclosure. Perhaps both. Like a mirror clouded by frost, her image remains blurred, but for an instant, it flickers with truth.
