Director: Stéphanie Di Giusto
Set against the rigid social codes of 19th-century provincial France, "Rosalie" tells the story of a young woman who, after marrying into a small-town inn, chooses to stop hiding a condition she has concealed since childhood.
What is Rosalie about?
Rosalie arrives in her new husband's town carrying a secret: she has grown a full beard, a trait she has covered for most of her life to fit into a world with rigid ideas about how a woman should look. Her marriage, arranged for practical reasons, gives her a fragile sense of stability, but the pressure of constant concealment weighs on her. Eventually she makes a decision that upends everything around her, choosing visibility over the comfort of hiding, and the town's reaction ripples outward from her household to the wider community. Director Stéphanie Di Giusto builds the film around Rosalie's interior journey rather than sensationalizing her difference, framing the story as one about self-acceptance colliding with a rigid, judgmental society. The period setting, all corsets and candlelight, sharpens the contrast between outward propriety and Rosalie's refusal to keep shrinking herself.
Cast & crew
Nadia Tereszkiewicz plays Rosalie with a mix of quiet determination and vulnerability, opposite Benoît Magimel as her husband, whose own conflicted loyalties shape much of the film's tension, with Benjamin Biolay and Guillaume Gouix rounding out the small-town ensemble.
Context & significance
Loosely inspired by real 19th-century "bearded lady" performers who toured fairs and exhibitions across Europe, "Rosalie" arrived in 2024 as a Belgian-French co-production running 115 minutes, positioning itself within a broader wave of period dramas reclaiming historically marginalized figures. The film's costume and production design lean into period authenticity, grounding its more unconventional themes in a recognizable historical texture rather than treating the era as mere backdrop.
Where & how to watch
"Rosalie" streams on K-Time after logging into a free account, while this page itself can be read without signing in. The platform's Farsi-friendly interface and Persian subtitles make period dramas like this one accessible to Iranian viewers around the world.