Hélène de Beauvoir is one of art history’s greatest overlooked figures. Praised by Picasso as “an original”, yet overshadowed by her famous sister and one of France’s most recognisable female philosophers, Simone de Beauvoir, Hélène’s work has remained relatively obscure, until now.

Amid an art world reappraisal, this film lets the artist tell her own story, through archive, photographs and interviews with those who knew her – including feminist and friend of both sisters, Claudine Monteil. Travel to the places that defined her: Paris, where she discovered her love of art, ran a women’s shelter and signed the infamous 1971 Manifesto in support of abortion rights; and Alsace, where she lived and worked for over forty years.

What emerges is a fierce feminist activism to rival that of her sister’s, where art is used as resistance and women’s lives are made visible long before it was fashionable. With tales of the century’s greatest minds, including Jean-Paul Sartre, Hélène’s artistic voice is rediscovered to honour a legacy worthy of the greats.