The Ice Tower

"Colder than ice, her kiss pierces the heart."

2025 1h 58m FR

😐

5.8

MID

★5.8TMDB · 28

FantasyDrama

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

Jeanne, a 15-year-old orphan, witnesses the shoot for a film adaptation of the fairy tale The Snow Queen, and she becomes fascinated by its star, Cristina, an actress who is just as mysterious and alluring as the Queen she is playing.

“Colder than ice, her kiss pierces the heart.”

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Cast

Marion Cotillard
Cristina / The Snow Queen
Clara Pacini
Jeanne / Bianca
August Diehl
Max
Marine Gesbert
Stéphanie
Lila-Rose Gilberti
Chloé
Gaspar Noé
Dino, the Director
Dounia Sichov
The First Assistant Director
Valentina Vezzoso
Bianca

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Lucile Hadžihalilović
Writers: Lucile Hadžihalilović, Geoff Cox
Languages: English, French
Countries: France, Germany

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Shot for just $0.0M — micro-budget by Hollywood standards.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

ERA

Did you know

Released last year.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

WORLD

Did you know

Dialogue crosses 2 languages: English, French.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

WORLD

Did you know

International production across 2 countries: France, Germany.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Lucile Hadžihalilović, shot by Jonathan Ricquebourg. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Nassim Gordji-Tehrani shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

CAST

Did you know

Marion Cotillard and Clara Pacini and August Diehl carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

ERA

Did you know

Marketing tagline: "Colder than ice, her kiss pierces the heart.".

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Lucile Hadžihalilović directs. Jonathan Ricquebourg behind the camera. Nassim Gordji-Tehrani cuts. Produced in France, Germany. Dialogue in English, French.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Shot for just $0.0M — micro-budget by Hollywood standards.
2Released last year.
3Dialogue crosses 2 languages: English, French.
4International production across 2 countries: France, Germany.
5Directed by Lucile Hadžihalilović, shot by Jonathan Ricquebourg. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
6Editor Nassim Gordji-Tehrani shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
7Marion Cotillard and Clara Pacini and August Diehl carry the top of the cast.
8Marketing tagline: "Colder than ice, her kiss pierces the heart.".
9IMDB entry: tt28171985 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
10Only 28 TMDB ratings — you're getting ahead of the curve on this one.
11Classified under 11 themes, including "fairy tale", "1970s", "snow", "female protagonist".

The technical file

Cinematography: Jonathan Ricquebourg
Editing: Nassim Gordji-Tehrani
Production design: Julia Irribarria
Makeup / hair: Vesna Peborde
VFX supervisor: Rodolphe Chabrier
Sound: Ken Yasumoto
Runtime: 118 min · 1h 58m
Status: Released
Budget: $45,713
Original language: FR
Certification (US): NR
IMDB: The Ice Tower (2025)

Also by

Lucile Hadžihalilović

Trailers & featurettes

Watch the pieces

Community reviews

What people are saying

CinemaSerf2026-01-15
★ 6/10
There are three threads to this drama, but sadly none of them are really very engaging as it veers away from what could have been quite an intriguing fantasy and heads more into melodrama territory. Firstly, we have “Jeanne” (Clara Pacini). An upset orphan, she has only recently fled her home and just happens to stumble upon a film production of “The Snow Queen” that is being headlined by the temperamental “Cristina” (Marion Cotillard). Now “Cristina” is not a woman with her problems to seek either, and with the third strand illustrating just how the film is being made, we are presented with a slow, dimly lit and really quite lacklustre combination of themes that never quite sparkles. To be fair to Cotillard, she does exude a certain frostiness that the photography does well to support, but as the two women’s characters start to intertwine more, that darkness, eeriness and coldness becomes subsumed in something altogether more tame. I’m sure one of it’s purposes is to blur the realities for both women - and thereby for us, too, and as it progresses we see the fascinated young “Jeanne/Bianca" become even more immersed in a fairy story than we know she was when she first arrived, but I didn’t feel there to be very much substance or electricity in their rapidly arrived at relationship. The film is atmospheric but that’s not really anything to do with either of them either, nor their sparsely delivered dialogue. For me, it was because I already knew how unforgiving and demanding Anderson’s original “Snow Queen” was and so Cotillard needn’t do so much of her own heavy lifting. I don’t know, perhaps I just wasn’t in the mood, but I was really quite disappointed with this.

Production companies