Marie Curie: The Courage of Knowledge

A fascinating and inspiring drama and love story. The most turbulent five years in the life of a genius woman between 1905, where Marie Curie comes with Pierre Curie to Stockholm to be awarded the Novel Prize for the discovery of the radioactivity and 1911, where she receives her second Nobel Prize. 1906 Pierre Curie is run over by a horse-drawn carriage and tragically dies on a Parisian street. Marie’s unique marriage and happiest lifetime is destroyed in one go. Left alone with two young daughters, the widow has responsibilities that would overwhelm the strongest man but she faces her duties with greatest courage as a mother and a scientist. Despite her sorrow, she continues the work that she began with Pierre, taking especially the “Curie-therapy” they developed against cancer to great heights. But science is primarily a man’s world and Marie’s audacity is not well seen by everybody. As she embarks on passionate affair with the mathematician Paul Langevin, she provokes a huge scandal and the tabloids drag her name through the mud. Alarmed by all the malevolent headlines, the Swedish Nobel Academy, who wanted to award her a second Nobel Prize (making her the first person ever to receive two), forbids her to drive to Stockholm to fetch her award. Doesn’t a woman in love earn recognition for her work?