The Queen's Favourite

In London, ca. 1590, as an epidemic claims increasing numbers of victims, doctor Gordon Pembroke defies a ban on dissection to perform autopsies to try to understand the disease. The queen’s lover, Lord Surrey, who has eyes for Pembroke’s daughter Evelyne, has the doctor executed and sentences Pembroke’s assistant, Arthur Leyde, whom Evelyne deeply loves, to a long prison term. But the jealous queen puts paid to Surrey’s plans – she promises the lady-in-waiting to the Earl of Warwick and grants Leyde a pardon. Surrey has Evelyne kidnapped, but once she is at his mercy, she falls into a coma. When Leyde autopsies her, he makes a discovery. (Berlinale)