Marion Cotillard’s Snow-Queen Turns a Movie Set into a Nightmare in The Ice Tower
The Ice Tower is a new film from director Lucile Hadžihalilović that mixes fairy-tale elements with film-set artifice. It follows a 15-year-old girl named Jeanne, played by newcomer Clara Pacini, who runs away from an orphanage and slips onto a movie set where a re-imagining of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen is being filmed. Marion Cotillard plays Cristina, the ice-queen actress on that set. The film opens in select theaters on Oct. 3, 2025.
Overview
Director: Lucile Hadžihalilović. She previously made Earwig, which is described as a neo-noir body-horror film. Title: The Ice Tower. Genre elements: fairy tale, psychological and fantastical horror, film-within-a-film.
Plot and cast
The story centers on Jeanne, a 15-year-old orphan who runs away and finds herself on the set of a film version of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen. There, she meets Cristina, a movie star who plays the Snow Queen on screen and who is played by Marion Cotillard. Clara Pacini plays Jeanne and is noted as a newcomer in the role. Cotillard previously worked with Hadžihalilović on Innocence about two decades ago.
Key facts
– Jeanne reads Andersen’s original story early in the film, which the director used as a direct reference point.
– The director describes moments in the film where Jeanne may be “inventing the film within the film,” suggesting an ambiguous line between reality and imagination.
– The film features a notable scene the director calls “the big kiss.”
Visual style and sound
Hadžihalilović and her crew intentionally emphasize artifice on the set within the film. For example, the production favored the look of fake snow and painted background mountains rather than real locations. The director said, “We were much more excited by filming the artificiality […] the fake snow rather than the real snow, and the fake mountains painted in the background.”
In addition, the soundtrack approach was pared back. The director explained, “We tried to make it very expressive and emotional, with not too many elements — we just removed many things, not only in the image, but a lot in the sound.” The film’s visuals and audio aim to support a dreamlike, rhythmic sensation rather than straightforward realism.
Themes and director approach
Hadžihalilović returned to Andersen’s original tale to anchor the film’s fantasy, while also mixing in harsh, grounding moments of reality. She described Andersen’s work as “very dark and very violent and very cruel,” and used that tone to shape the film’s darker edges. The director framed the film as existing on “the line between reality and fantasy,” and said the film set offered “a way to escape, to build a world, a universe, that has its own reality and rules.”
The film’s structure intentionally blurs levels of fiction: Jeanne moves from the orphanage into a movie set, and then gradually becomes involved in the shooting until she is, according to the director, “inside the story itself.” The result is a narrative that leaves some elements unresolved and open to interpretation.
Release and trailer
Release date: The Ice Tower opens in select theaters on Oct. 3, 2025.
For a look at footage associated with the film, the director’s team included a video link.
Additional credits reported: Lucile Hadžihalilović directs; Clara Pacini and Marion Cotillard are the lead actors; the film draws on Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen as a narrative reference.
