At nineteen, Maria Schneider was cast opposite Marlon Brando in what would become one of the most controversial films ever made. What happened on the set of Last Tango in Paris — a scene improvised without her knowledge or consent — would define her in the public imagination for the rest of her life. But the woman behind the headline spent four decades refusing to be reduced to it.

Schneider rebuilt herself from heroin addiction and repeated suicide attempts, maintained a thirty-year partnership with the woman she loved, and quietly built a career of fifty films that the world mostly ignored in favour of one scene from one movie. She spoke publicly about what was done to her years before anyone was ready to listen — and died five years before the world finally caught up.

This is the story of a woman who said no when no one had a word for what she was refusing, and who kept speaking into silence until the silence cracked.

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