Before Agnès Varda, Jacqueline Audry was the only female director to have a successful continuous career in French cinema. Olivia (1951) is her queer masterpiece.

Set in a Belle Époque finishing school, the film follows Olivia, a young student who falls in love with her teacher, Mlle Julie, portrayed by Edwige Feuillère. Rather than condemning or sensationalizing the feeling of the main character, Olivia approaches female desire with rare sensitivity and nuance for its time, making it one of the earliest films to depict a romantic bond between women without moral judgment.

Like many of Audry’s films centered on young heroines, Olivia helped introduce a new kind of female character to French cinema by going beyond the idealized portrayals commonly seen on screen.