Coppola just won the Palme D’or for directing at Cannes, “The Beguiled.” She’s only the second woman ever to win, and the first in 50 years. The Civil War thriller is a feminist remake of Don Siegel’s 1971 movie starring Eastwood and Geraldine Page. The film stars Nicole Kidman as the head of a devout Christian Southern boarding school, the Farnsworth Seminary. She oversees a handful of Southern belles of various ages. Their Gothic mansion, with its overgrown willow trees in the sweltering heat, provides refuge to an injured enemy soldier, Corporal John McBurney, played by Colin Farrell. The house is filled with longing women. Kirsten Dunst beautifully plays the most frustrated, conflicted hence rivalries, sexual tension and jarring unexpected events.

Longtime pal Quentin had no doubts this was in Sofia’s wheelhouse. “She called me even before she began the project to tell me she was thinking about it. I told her she was the perfect director to do it. Just the right fit. I knew it then. I told her to do it. She did a fantastic job with it.”