Tag: Cannes Film Festival

  • Avneet Kaur Lights Up Roberto Cavalli’s Cannes After-Party With Her Stunning Presence | People News

    Avneet Kaur recently made a dazzling debut at the esteemed Cannes Film Festival 2024, a new Milestone in Rising Career. The young actress traveled to the iconic French Riviera for the poster launch of her upcoming international film,’ Love in Vietnam’. Her appearance at Cannes is particularly notable as it makes her the youngest mainstream Indian actress to attend the festival for a poster launch.

    Avneet Kaur recently made a stunning appearance at the after-party of renowned fashion designer Roberto Cavalli in Cannes. The event was attended by celebrities and fashion icons from around the world. Avneet Kaur, renowned for her impeccable style and fashion sense, captivated attention with her glamorous outfit upon arriving at the event.

    Her presence at Roberto Cavalli’s after-party underscored her prominence in the entertainment industry, solidifying her status as a global force. This event highlighted the increasing influence of Indian celebrities in high fashion and luxury circles.

    Avneet Kaur’s appearance at Roberto Cavalli’s after-party in Cannes garnered international acclaim, firmly establishing her as a style icon.

    Her natural grace and inherent fashion sense serve as ongoing inspiration for her followers, further enhancing her standing in both the fashion and entertainment realms.

  • Rapper King To Make Debut Appearance At 77th Cannes Film Festival

    Singer-songwriter and rapper King is all set to make his debut at the prestigious 77th Cannes Film Festival, gracing the red carpet along the French Riviera.

  • Who is Cannes runner-up winner Jonathan Glazer?

    By AFP

    CANNES: Jonathan Glazer, who won the runner-up prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival on Saturday for his Holocaust drama “The Zone of Interest”, has made just a handful of films in 20 years.

    But each one has been unique, drawing highly memorable performances from stars such as Nicole Kidman, Ben Kingsley and, in his latest feature, Sandra Hueller.

    The Cannes-winning film comes a decade on from the enigmatic British director’s last film, “Under the Skin”, the ultra-bizarre alien flick starring Scarlett Johansson.

    Christian Friedel, from left, director Jonathan Glazer, and Sandra Huller pose at the photo call for ‘The Zone of Interest’ at the 76th international film festival, Cannes, southern France, May 20, 2023. (AP)

    Here’s a quick summary of the man and his work:

    Ads and music videosLondon-born Glazer, 58, began in the theatre before moving into adverts and music videos.

    He made memorable ads for Guinness, Stella Artois and Levi’s in the 1990s and several videos for Radiohead, as well as Jamiroquai’s “Virtual Insanity” which won the MTV video of the year award in 1997.

    ‘Sexy Beast’ (2000)Glazer caused a sensation with his first film starring Ray Winstone and Ben Kingsley, putting a bravura spin on the tired British gangster genre with the sort of searing images that characterised his ads and music videos.

    It gave the world one of most unforgettably insane characters ever committed to celluloid in Kingsley’s motor-mouthed psycho Don Logan — as distant as it’s possible to be from his best-known role as Gandhi — earning the actor an Oscar nomination.

    ALSO READ | 

    ‘Birth’ (2004)Radically switching genres, Glazer turned next to this eerie New York tale about a widow (Nicole Kidman) confronted by a 10-year-old who claims to be her reincarnated dead husband.

    The film confounded and scandalised critics at the time and was booed at its Venice Film Festival premiere, with many disturbed by the sexual overtones of the central relationship, but its reputation has grown over the years and earned comparisons with legendary director Stanley Kubrick.

    ‘Under the Skin’ (2013)Glazer’s mysterious sci-fi set in a remote coastal Scottish town drew a stand-out performance from Scarlett Johansson, playing an alien in human form who roams the beaches and streets, picking up random men and luring them to an abandoned house.

    Mixing highly stylised abstract scenes with gritty Glasgow realism, Glazer’s film was both baffling and mesmerising, but this time the critics were won over, with the film topping multiple film-of-the-year lists.

    ‘The Zone of Interest’ (2023)After a decade in which he only made a couple of short films, Glazer has returned with another unique offering — looking at the disturbing ordinary private life of a Nazi officer at the Auschwitz concentration camp.

    It never shows the horrors of the camp directly, but the audience knows full well what the background noises — trains, incinerators, gunshots and screams — signify.

    On Saturday the jury at Cannes awarded the film the Grand Prix after critics had been near-unanimous in their praise following the premiere at the festival.

    CANNES: Jonathan Glazer, who won the runner-up prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival on Saturday for his Holocaust drama “The Zone of Interest”, has made just a handful of films in 20 years.

    But each one has been unique, drawing highly memorable performances from stars such as Nicole Kidman, Ben Kingsley and, in his latest feature, Sandra Hueller.

    The Cannes-winning film comes a decade on from the enigmatic British director’s last film, “Under the Skin”, the ultra-bizarre alien flick starring Scarlett Johansson.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-8052921-2’); });

    Christian Friedel, from left, director Jonathan Glazer, and Sandra Huller pose at the photo call for ‘The Zone of Interest’ at the 76th international film festival, Cannes, southern France, May 20, 2023. (AP)

    Here’s a quick summary of the man and his work:

    Ads and music videos
    London-born Glazer, 58, began in the theatre before moving into adverts and music videos.

    He made memorable ads for Guinness, Stella Artois and Levi’s in the 1990s and several videos for Radiohead, as well as Jamiroquai’s “Virtual Insanity” which won the MTV video of the year award in 1997.

    ‘Sexy Beast’ (2000)
    Glazer caused a sensation with his first film starring Ray Winstone and Ben Kingsley, putting a bravura spin on the tired British gangster genre with the sort of searing images that characterised his ads and music videos.

    It gave the world one of most unforgettably insane characters ever committed to celluloid in Kingsley’s motor-mouthed psycho Don Logan — as distant as it’s possible to be from his best-known role as Gandhi — earning the actor an Oscar nomination.

    ALSO READ | 

    Turkey’s Merve Dizdar wins best actress at Cannes for ‘About Dry Grasses’
    The real winner at Cannes was actress Sandra Hueller
    ‘Protests over pension reforms in France repressed in shocking way’: ‘Palme’ winner Justine Triet
     Japan’s Koji Yakusho wins best actor at Cannes for ‘Perfect Days’, an ode to a toilet cleaner
    ‘Birth’ (2004)
    Radically switching genres, Glazer turned next to this eerie New York tale about a widow (Nicole Kidman) confronted by a 10-year-old who claims to be her reincarnated dead husband.

    The film confounded and scandalised critics at the time and was booed at its Venice Film Festival premiere, with many disturbed by the sexual overtones of the central relationship, but its reputation has grown over the years and earned comparisons with legendary director Stanley Kubrick.

    ‘Under the Skin’ (2013)
    Glazer’s mysterious sci-fi set in a remote coastal Scottish town drew a stand-out performance from Scarlett Johansson, playing an alien in human form who roams the beaches and streets, picking up random men and luring them to an abandoned house.

    Mixing highly stylised abstract scenes with gritty Glasgow realism, Glazer’s film was both baffling and mesmerising, but this time the critics were won over, with the film topping multiple film-of-the-year lists.

    ‘The Zone of Interest’ (2023)
    After a decade in which he only made a couple of short films, Glazer has returned with another unique offering — looking at the disturbing ordinary private life of a Nazi officer at the Auschwitz concentration camp.

    It never shows the horrors of the camp directly, but the audience knows full well what the background noises — trains, incinerators, gunshots and screams — signify.

    On Saturday the jury at Cannes awarded the film the Grand Prix after critics had been near-unanimous in their praise following the premiere at the festival.

  • Britain’s Molly Manning Walker wins Cannes newcomer prize for ‘How to Have Sex’

    By AFP

    CANNES: British director Molly Manning Walker won the coveted Un Certain Regard newcomer prize at Cannes on Friday for her much-praised feature debut “How to Have Sex”.

    “This film was the most magical moment of my life,” the 29-year-old Londoner said after receiving the prize, which she dedicated to “all those who have been sexually assaulted”.

    The film follows three best friends getting drunk in Crete, with one of the girls, Tara, on a mission to lose her virginity — but things soon go wrong.

    All the stereotypes of Brits abroad feature in the film but Manning Walker also sought to break them by digging deeper into the thorny issues of rape and consent.

    It caused a storm at this year’s festival and drew rave reviews.

    Variety found it “chillingly dark”, The Guardian admired its “complex chemistry” and The Hollywood Reporter dubbed it a “hidden gem”.

    ALSO READ | 

    Drawing from her own experience, Manning Walker speaking to AFP earlier during the festival, said she was inspired by “the best times of my life”, but also the sexual assault she suffered at 16 — and wanted to show it all without judgement.

    Shot in a fly-on-the-wall style, she resisted showing graphic assault scenes.

    “I think we as women know that experience way too much — we don’t need to be re-traumatised,” she said.

    Instead, she focused on her characters’ emotional experiences.

    “Everything was from her eyeline and everything was on her face and reading her emotion,” she said.

    Manning Walker is one of an emerging crop of exciting British woman directors alongside the likes of Charlotte Wells whose “Aftersun” was last year’s unexpected breakout at Cannes, earning an Oscar nomination for star Paul Mescal.

    Before directing she was a cinematographer for nearly a decade and shot films for other young British talents including Charlotte Regan’s “Scrapper” that won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance film festival this year.

    She has also made music videos and adverts, as well as two short films including “Good Thanks, You?” that screened at Cannes in 2020.

    CANNES: British director Molly Manning Walker won the coveted Un Certain Regard newcomer prize at Cannes on Friday for her much-praised feature debut “How to Have Sex”.

    “This film was the most magical moment of my life,” the 29-year-old Londoner said after receiving the prize, which she dedicated to “all those who have been sexually assaulted”.

    The film follows three best friends getting drunk in Crete, with one of the girls, Tara, on a mission to lose her virginity — but things soon go wrong.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-8052921-2’); });

    All the stereotypes of Brits abroad feature in the film but Manning Walker also sought to break them by digging deeper into the thorny issues of rape and consent.

    It caused a storm at this year’s festival and drew rave reviews.

    Variety found it “chillingly dark”, The Guardian admired its “complex chemistry” and The Hollywood Reporter dubbed it a “hidden gem”.

    ALSO READ | 

    Turkey’s Merve Dizdar wins best actress at Cannes for ‘About Dry Grasses’
    The real winner at Cannes was actress Sandra Hueller
    ‘Protests over pension reforms in France repressed in shocking way’: ‘Palme’ winner Justine Triet
     Japan’s Koji Yakusho wins best actor at Cannes for ‘Perfect Days’, an ode to a toilet cleaner
    Drawing from her own experience, Manning Walker speaking to AFP earlier during the festival, said she was inspired by “the best times of my life”, but also the sexual assault she suffered at 16 — and wanted to show it all without judgement.

    Shot in a fly-on-the-wall style, she resisted showing graphic assault scenes.

    “I think we as women know that experience way too much — we don’t need to be re-traumatised,” she said.

    Instead, she focused on her characters’ emotional experiences.

    “Everything was from her eyeline and everything was on her face and reading her emotion,” she said.

    Manning Walker is one of an emerging crop of exciting British woman directors alongside the likes of Charlotte Wells whose “Aftersun” was last year’s unexpected breakout at Cannes, earning an Oscar nomination for star Paul Mescal.

    Before directing she was a cinematographer for nearly a decade and shot films for other young British talents including Charlotte Regan’s “Scrapper” that won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance film festival this year.

    She has also made music videos and adverts, as well as two short films including “Good Thanks, You?” that screened at Cannes in 2020.

  • Turkey’s Merve Dizdar wins best actress at Cannes for ‘About Dry Grasses’

    By AFP

    CANNES: Turkey’s Merve Dizdar won best actress at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday for “About Dry Grasses”, the latest from festival favourite Nuri Bilge Ceylan.

    She said she played “someone who is fighting for her life and she has overcome a lot of difficulties.”

    “Under normal circumstances I would have to work hard on this character in order to understand her, but I live in a part of the country which enabled me to fully understand who she is,” she added.

    “I understand what it is, being a woman in that area.”

    In “About Dry Grasses” she plays a former activist rebuilding her life after having her leg amputated from a bombing. She captures the interests of two village schoolteachers, and challenges their cynicism with her own dedication to political activism, in Ceylan’s trademark powerful dialogue.

    The film focuses on a dejected schoolteacher frustrated with his life in a remote Anatolian village.

    Shot in Ceylan’s visually arresting style, it looks at teacher-pupil relations and the roots of political engagement.

    Merve Dizdarp, from left, director Nuri Bilge Ceylan and Ece Bagcı pose at the photo call for the film ‘About Dry Grasses’ at the 76th international film festival, Cannes, southern France, May 20, 2023. (AP)

    The 36-year-old Dizdar has been starring in films and television since the early 2010s after studying acting and starting out in theatre.

    Her roles have included some popular TV series in Turkey, including “Wounded Love”.

    Ceylan previously won the Palme d’Or for “Winter Sleep”, among multiple awards he has received over the years at the Cannes Film Festival.

    ALSO READ |

     Japan’s Koji Yakusho wins best actor at Cannes for ‘Perfect Days’, an ode to a toilet cleaner

    The real winner at Cannes was actress Sandra Hueller

    ‘Protests over pension reforms in France repressed in shocking way’: ‘Palme’ winner Justine Triet

    CANNES: Turkey’s Merve Dizdar won best actress at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday for “About Dry Grasses”, the latest from festival favourite Nuri Bilge Ceylan.

    She said she played “someone who is fighting for her life and she has overcome a lot of difficulties.”

    “Under normal circumstances I would have to work hard on this character in order to understand her, but I live in a part of the country which enabled me to fully understand who she is,” she added.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-8052921-2’); });

    “I understand what it is, being a woman in that area.”

    In “About Dry Grasses” she plays a former activist rebuilding her life after having her leg amputated from a bombing. She captures the interests of two village schoolteachers, and challenges their cynicism with her own dedication to political activism, in Ceylan’s trademark powerful dialogue.

    The film focuses on a dejected schoolteacher frustrated with his life in a remote Anatolian village.

    Shot in Ceylan’s visually arresting style, it looks at teacher-pupil relations and the roots of political engagement.

    Merve Dizdarp, from left, director Nuri Bilge Ceylan and Ece Bagcı pose at the photo call for the film ‘About Dry Grasses’ at the 76th international film festival, Cannes, southern France, May 20, 2023. (AP)

    The 36-year-old Dizdar has been starring in films and television since the early 2010s after studying acting and starting out in theatre.

    Her roles have included some popular TV series in Turkey, including “Wounded Love”.

    Ceylan previously won the Palme d’Or for “Winter Sleep”, among multiple awards he has received over the years at the Cannes Film Festival.

    ALSO READ |

     Japan’s Koji Yakusho wins best actor at Cannes for ‘Perfect Days’, an ode to a toilet cleaner

    The real winner at Cannes was actress Sandra Hueller

    ‘Protests over pension reforms in France repressed in shocking way’: ‘Palme’ winner Justine Triet

  • Japan’s Koji Yakusho wins best actor at Cannes for ‘Perfect Days’, an ode to a toilet cleaner

    By AFP

    CANNES: Japan’s Koji Yakusho won best actor at Cannes on Saturday for “Perfect Days” by German director Wim Wenders, a touching tale about a Tokyo toilet cleaner.

    “I want to specifically thank Wim Wenders… who truly created a magnificent character,” he said as he received the award.

    Yakusho, 67, appears in most scenes of “Perfect Days” as a mysterious, bookish man without friends, content to spend his spare time reading, watering his plants, taking photos and listening to songs on his car stereo.

    Director Wim Wenders, left, and Koji Yakusho pose at the photo call for the film ‘Perfect Days’ at the 76th international film festival, Cannes, southern France, May 26, 2023. (AP)

    The versatile actor’s roles in over four decades of movie-making have ranged from warlords and gangsters to killers and cops — and now an everyman who keeps the public washrooms of Tokyo pristine.

    He has also crossed over to Hollywood for “Memoirs of a Geisha” in 2005 and “Babel” a year later.

    “Wim had given me very little information… There was a lot of mystery. Even today, it’s a character I know almost nothing about,” he said of his role, which involved almost no dialogue.

    Koji Yakusho (AP)

    “It was the first time I shot like that, over a very short period, without rehearsal,” he said about working with one of the giants of European cinema.

    Germany’s Wenders, 77, won the top prize Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1984 for “Paris, Texas”.

    Born in 1956 in Isahaya, Nagasaki prefecture, Yakusho first worked as a town hall employee before turning to acting in 1979, after following up on an ad in a newspaper.

    Out of 800 candidates he was one of four selected, “and today I am the only one to be an actor”, he told French media in 2003.

    His first big role that helped propel his career was in the popular hit “Tampopo” (1985) about the hunt for a noodle soup recipe.

    Since then among his notable films have been “The Eel”, winner of the Palme in 1997, and “The Third Murder” in 2017.

    In 2009 he made his first and only feature “Toad’s Oil” in which he also played the lead role.

    Asked what keeps him going in the trade, he told The Hollywood Reporter in 2019: “I always think I haven’t got it quite right, but in the next film I’ll finally nail it. I guess that’s the drug of this business for me, which has kept me going for 40 years.”

    ALSO READ | 

    Turkey’s Merve Dizdar wins best actress at Cannes for ‘About Dry Grasses’

    The real winner at Cannes was actress Sandra Hueller

    ‘Protests over pension reforms in France repressed in shocking way’: ‘Palme’ winner Justine Triet

    CANNES: Japan’s Koji Yakusho won best actor at Cannes on Saturday for “Perfect Days” by German director Wim Wenders, a touching tale about a Tokyo toilet cleaner.

    “I want to specifically thank Wim Wenders… who truly created a magnificent character,” he said as he received the award.

    Yakusho, 67, appears in most scenes of “Perfect Days” as a mysterious, bookish man without friends, content to spend his spare time reading, watering his plants, taking photos and listening to songs on his car stereo.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-8052921-2’); });

    Director Wim Wenders, left, and Koji Yakusho pose at the photo call for the film ‘Perfect Days’ at the 76th international film festival, Cannes, southern France, May 26, 2023. (AP)

    The versatile actor’s roles in over four decades of movie-making have ranged from warlords and gangsters to killers and cops — and now an everyman who keeps the public washrooms of Tokyo pristine.

    He has also crossed over to Hollywood for “Memoirs of a Geisha” in 2005 and “Babel” a year later.

    “Wim had given me very little information… There was a lot of mystery. Even today, it’s a character I know almost nothing about,” he said of his role, which involved almost no dialogue.

    Koji Yakusho (AP)

    “It was the first time I shot like that, over a very short period, without rehearsal,” he said about working with one of the giants of European cinema.

    Germany’s Wenders, 77, won the top prize Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1984 for “Paris, Texas”.

    Born in 1956 in Isahaya, Nagasaki prefecture, Yakusho first worked as a town hall employee before turning to acting in 1979, after following up on an ad in a newspaper.

    Out of 800 candidates he was one of four selected, “and today I am the only one to be an actor”, he told French media in 2003.

    His first big role that helped propel his career was in the popular hit “Tampopo” (1985) about the hunt for a noodle soup recipe.

    Since then among his notable films have been “The Eel”, winner of the Palme in 1997, and “The Third Murder” in 2017.

    In 2009 he made his first and only feature “Toad’s Oil” in which he also played the lead role.

    Asked what keeps him going in the trade, he told The Hollywood Reporter in 2019: “I always think I haven’t got it quite right, but in the next film I’ll finally nail it. I guess that’s the drug of this business for me, which has kept me going for 40 years.”

    ALSO READ | 

    Turkey’s Merve Dizdar wins best actress at Cannes for ‘About Dry Grasses’

    The real winner at Cannes was actress Sandra Hueller

    ‘Protests over pension reforms in France repressed in shocking way’: ‘Palme’ winner Justine Triet

  • The real winner at Cannes was actress Sandra Hueller

    By AFP

    CANNES: She may not have won an award, but many will agree that the big winner at Cannes this year was German actress Sandra Hueller, who starred in the festival’s top two films.

    Hueller confirmed her reputation as one of Europe’s most versatile and fearless actresses as she gave a gripping performance in courtroom drama “Anatomy of a Fall”, which won the top prize Palme d’Or for French director Justine Triet on Saturday.

    She also starred in Holocaust drama “The Zone of Interest” by Britain’s Jonathan Glazer, which won the runner-up Grand Prix.

    “I think about human beings as vessels for all sorts of feelings and emotions… it’s just a question of how to channel that and show that,” Hueller told reporters.

    Triet praised Hueller, telling AFP: “Everything that comes out of her is 100 percent strong. Due to her theatre training, she has a completely different way of working. When she arrives, she has already been working for months on the film so her first takes are very strong,” she said.

    “She is an actress who has a real point of view on her character, there is a real exchange.”

    Sandra Huller, left, and director Justine Triet at the photo call for the film ‘Anatomy of a Fall’ at the 76th international film festival, Cannes, southern France, May 22, 2023. (AP)

    ‘A responsibility’Born on April 30, 1978, in East Germany, Hueller trained in theatre in Berlin after the end of the Cold War.

    She gained international acclaim for “Requiem” (2006), playing a woman with epilepsy in a religious community that believes she is possessed, which won her the best actress award at the Berlin Film Festival.

    Her lead role in black comedy “Toni Erdmann” (2016) confirmed her status as a star of the festival circuit, showing she had comic timing to match her dramatic chops.

    Many felt “Toni Erdmann” was robbed of the Palme d’Or at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, but that was more that compensated in 2023.

    Her performance in “The Zone of Interest” was particularly disturbing as she took on the role of Hedwig Hoess, wife of Auschwitz camp commandant Rudolf Hoess.

    She told reporters in Cannes that she “felt a responsibility as a German” to play the role.

    “There was no real way to do it right,” she said. “It was never about being good at something or doing something extraordinary. It was so little to do with acting, but with presence, with listening, being respectful for those around us.”

    Sandra Huller poses for photographers upon arrival at the awards ceremony during the 76th international film festival, Cannes, May 27, 2023. (AP)

    Both films at the festival showcase Hueller’s “flinty intelligence, her emotional ferocity and her utter fearlessness,” wrote the Los Angeles Times, calling her the “queen of Cannes”.

    Hueller said the two directors were “completely different” in their approach.

    “But both are so focused on what they do,” she added. “Some directors are a bit manipulative… don’t give you all the information you need for a character, but with these two everything was on the table — what they wanted to achieve, what they wanted to tell.”

    Also known for her stage work, Hueller has collaborated frequently with renowned theatre director Thomas Ostermeier, trying her hand at everything from Shakespeare to avant-garde experimentalism.

    ALSO READ | 

    Japan’s Koji Yakusho wins best actor at Cannes for ‘Perfect Days’, an ode to a toilet cleaner

    Turkey’s Merve Dizdar wins best actress at Cannes for ‘About Dry Grasses’

    CANNES: She may not have won an award, but many will agree that the big winner at Cannes this year was German actress Sandra Hueller, who starred in the festival’s top two films.

    Hueller confirmed her reputation as one of Europe’s most versatile and fearless actresses as she gave a gripping performance in courtroom drama “Anatomy of a Fall”, which won the top prize Palme d’Or for French director Justine Triet on Saturday.

    She also starred in Holocaust drama “The Zone of Interest” by Britain’s Jonathan Glazer, which won the runner-up Grand Prix.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-8052921-2’); });

    “I think about human beings as vessels for all sorts of feelings and emotions… it’s just a question of how to channel that and show that,” Hueller told reporters.

    Triet praised Hueller, telling AFP: “Everything that comes out of her is 100 percent strong. Due to her theatre training, she has a completely different way of working. When she arrives, she has already been working for months on the film so her first takes are very strong,” she said.

    “She is an actress who has a real point of view on her character, there is a real exchange.”

    Sandra Huller, left, and director Justine Triet at the photo call for the film ‘Anatomy of a Fall’ at the 76th international film festival, Cannes, southern France, May 22, 2023. (AP)

    ‘A responsibility’
    Born on April 30, 1978, in East Germany, Hueller trained in theatre in Berlin after the end of the Cold War.

    She gained international acclaim for “Requiem” (2006), playing a woman with epilepsy in a religious community that believes she is possessed, which won her the best actress award at the Berlin Film Festival.

    Her lead role in black comedy “Toni Erdmann” (2016) confirmed her status as a star of the festival circuit, showing she had comic timing to match her dramatic chops.

    Many felt “Toni Erdmann” was robbed of the Palme d’Or at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, but that was more that compensated in 2023.

    Her performance in “The Zone of Interest” was particularly disturbing as she took on the role of Hedwig Hoess, wife of Auschwitz camp commandant Rudolf Hoess.

    She told reporters in Cannes that she “felt a responsibility as a German” to play the role.

    “There was no real way to do it right,” she said. “It was never about being good at something or doing something extraordinary. It was so little to do with acting, but with presence, with listening, being respectful for those around us.”

    Sandra Huller poses for photographers upon arrival at the awards ceremony during the 76th international film festival, Cannes, May 27, 2023. (AP)

    Both films at the festival showcase Hueller’s “flinty intelligence, her emotional ferocity and her utter fearlessness,” wrote the Los Angeles Times, calling her the “queen of Cannes”.

    Hueller said the two directors were “completely different” in their approach.

    “But both are so focused on what they do,” she added. “Some directors are a bit manipulative… don’t give you all the information you need for a character, but with these two everything was on the table — what they wanted to achieve, what they wanted to tell.”

    Also known for her stage work, Hueller has collaborated frequently with renowned theatre director Thomas Ostermeier, trying her hand at everything from Shakespeare to avant-garde experimentalism.

    ALSO READ | 

    Japan’s Koji Yakusho wins best actor at Cannes for ‘Perfect Days’, an ode to a toilet cleaner

    Turkey’s Merve Dizdar wins best actress at Cannes for ‘About Dry Grasses’

  • ‘Protests over pension reforms in France repressed in shocking way’: ‘Palme’ winner Justine Triet

    The French director's debut “Age of Panic” was set around the presidential elections in France in 2012 and caused a sensation when it premiered at Cannes the following year. CANNES: French director Justine Triet hit a stridently militant note in her acceptance speech for the Palme d’Or on Saturday. Triet became the third woman to win the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday with her gripping and icy “Anatomy of a Fall”.

    “The country suffered from historic protests over the reform of the pension system. These protests were denied… repressed in a shocking way,” she said.

    She also criticised the “commercialisation of culture” by President Emmanuel Macron’s government.

    Her speech provoked a swift response from Culture Minister Rima Abdul Malak, who said she was “gobsmacked” by Triet’s “unfair” comments.

    Victory for the tense courtroom drama about a writer accused of her husband’s murder capped a strong year for women directors at the French Riviera festival.

    “I have always made films about women and here, I went even further in the idea of showing a woman character who is not easy to understand in the first instance,” Triet told AFP ahead of Cannes.

    The 44-year-old follows two previous women winners of the prestigious Palme d’Or — Jane Campion for “The Piano” (1993) and Julia Ducournau for “Titane” (2021).

    Born on July 17, 1978, Triet grew up in Paris and studied arts in the French capital.

    “My mother had a fairly complex life, worked and raised three children, two of whom were not her own. My father was very absent”, she told AFP.

    She ditched her studies after a few years to devote herself to film and made her first documentary in 2007 about student protests that were taking place at the time.

    “Anatomy of a Fall” is her fourth feature.

    Le discours engagé de Justine Triet, réalisatrice de “Anatomie d’une chute”, au moment de recevoir la Palme d’Or de ce 76ème @Festival_Cannes.#Cannes2023 pic.twitter.com/yEQXaCIlrX
    — france.tv cinéma (@francetvcinema) May 27, 2023

    Her debut “Age of Panic” was set around the presidential elections in France in 2012 and caused a sensation when it premiered at Cannes the following year.

    Her next movie, the romcom “In Bed With Victoria” (2016) was nominated for multiple Cesars, France’s equivalent of the Oscars.

    Absolutely incredible moment when Jane Fonda, having awarded Justine Triet the Palme d’Or, rushes after her to hand her the traditional scroll that all winners receive, and, when Triet doesn’t hear her, simply… lobs it right at her. Weeping https://t.co/B7BFAP0jpJ
    — Caspar Salmon (@CasparSalmon) May 27, 2023

    Triet co-wrote her Palme-winning film with her partner Arthur Harari, an actor and director.

    “For a very long time when I watched films, I took myself for the boy, I identified with the male role”, she said, referring to the lack of options for women in the industry when she was young.

    “Anatomy of a Fall” features a show-stopping performance from German actress Sandra Hueller.

    Hueller also had a brief and comical role in Triet’s previous movie “Sibyl”, which competed at Cannes in 2019.

    “Everything that comes out of her is 100 percent strong,” Triet said of Hueller, who also starred in the runner-up at this year’s Cannes, Grand Prix-winner “The Zone of Interest”.

    “She is an actress who has a real point of view on her character, there is a real exchange.”

  • ‘Anatomy of a Fall’ wins Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or; 3rd-time female director wins top honor

    By Associated Press

    Justine Triet’s “Anatomy of a Fall” won the Palme d’Or at the 76th Cannes Film Festival in a ceremony Saturday that bestowed the festival’s prestigious top prize on an engrossing, rigorously plotted French courtroom drama that puts a marriage on trial.

    “Anatomy of a Fall,” which stars Sandra Hüller as a writer trying to prove her innocence in her husband’s death, is only the third film directed by a woman to win the Palme d’Or. One of the two previous winners, Julia Ducournau, was on this year’s jury.

    Cannes’ Grand Prix, its second prize, went to Jonathan Glazer’s “The Zone of Interest,” a chilling Martin Amis adaptation about a German family living next door to Auschwitz. Hüller also stars in that film.

    The awards were decided by a jury presided over by two-time Palme winner Ruben Östlund, the Swedish director who won the prize last year for “Triangle of Sadness.” The ceremony preceded the festival’s closing night film, the Pixar animation “Elemental.”

    Remarkably, the award for “Anatomy of a Fall” gives the indie distributor Neon its fourth straight Palme winners. Neon, which acquired the film after its premiere in Cannes, also backed “Triangle of Sadness,”Ducournau’s “Titane” and Bong Joon Ho’s “Parasite,” which it steered to a best picture win at the Academy Awards.

    Triet was presented the Palme by Jane Fonda, who recalled coming to Cannes in 1963 when, she said, there were no female filmmakers competing “and it never even occurred to us that there was something wrong with that.” This year, a record seven out of the 21 films in competition at Cannes were directed by women.

    After a rousing standing ovation, Triet, the 44-year-old French filmmaker, spoke passionately about the protests that have roiled France this year over reforms to pension plans and the retirement age. Several protests were held during Cannes this year, but demonstrations were — as they have been in many high-profile locations throughout France — banned from the area around the Palais des Festivals. Protesters were largely relegated to the outskirts of Cannes.

    “The protests were denied and repressed in a shocking way,” said Triet, who linked that governmental influence to that in cinema. “The merchandizing of culture, defended by a liberal government, is breaking the French cultural exception.”

    “This award is dedicated to all the young women directors and all the young male directors and all those who cannot manage to shoot films today,” she added. “We must give them the space I occupied 15 years ago in a less hostile world where it was still possible to make mistakes and start again.”

    After the ceremony, Triet reflected on being the third female director to win the Palme, following Ducournau and Jane Campion (“The Piano”). “Things are truly changing,” she said.

    Speaking to reporters, Triet was joined by her star, Hüller, whose performance was arguably the most acclaimed of the festival. (The festival encourages juries not to give films more than one award.) But

    “Anatomy of a Fall” did pocket one other sought-after prize: the Palme Dog. The honor given to the best canine in the festival’s films went to the film’s border collie, Snoop.

    The jury prize went to Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki’s “Fallen Leaves,” a deadpan love story about a romance that blooms in a loveless workaday Helsinki where dispatches from the war in Ukraine regularly play on the radio.

    Best actor went to veteran Japanese star Koji Yakusho, who plays a reflective, middle-aged Tokyo man who cleans toilets in Wim Wenders’ “Perfect Days,” a gentle, quotidian character study.

    The Turkish actor Merve Dizdar took best actress for the Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s “About Dry Grasses.” Ceylan’s expansive tale is set in snowy eastern Anatolia about a teacher, Samet (Deniz Celiloğlu), accused of misconduct by a young female student. Dizdar plays a friend both attracted and repelled by Samet.

    “I understand what it’s like to be a woman in this area of the country,” said Dizdar. “I would like to dedicate this prize to all the women who are fighting to exist and overcome difficulties in this world and to retrain hope.”

    Vietnamese-French director Tràn Anh Hùng took best director for “Pot-au-Feu,” a lush, foodie love story starring Juliette Binoche and Benoît Magimel and set in a 19th century French gourmet château.

    Best screenplay was won by Yuji Sakamoto for “Monster.” Sakamoto penned Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda’s nuanced drama, with shifting perspectives, about two boys struggling for acceptance in their school at home. “Monster” also won the Queer Palm, an honor bestowed by journalists for the festival’s strongest LGBTQ-themed film.

    Quentin Tarantino, who won Cannes’ top award for “Pulp Fiction,” attended the ceremony to present a tribute to filmmaker Roger Corman. Tarantino praised Corman for filling him and countless moviegoers with “unadulterated cinema pleasure.”

    “My cinema is uninhibited, full of excess and fun,” said Corman, the independent film maverick. “I feel like this what Cannes is about.”

    The festival’s Un Certain Regard section handed out its awards on Friday, giving the top prize to Molly Manning Walker’s debut feature, “How to Have Sex.”Saturday’s ceremony drew to close a Cannes edition that hasn’t lacked spectacle, stars or controversy.

    The biggest wattage premieres came out of competition. Martin Scorsese debuted his Osage murders epic “Killers of the Flower Moon,” a sprawling vision of American exploitation with Leonardo DiCaprio and Lily Gladstone. “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” Harrison Ford’s Indy farewell, launched with a tribute to Ford. Wes Anderson premiered “Asteroid City.”

    The festival opened on a note of controversy. “Jeanne du Barry,” a period drama co-starring Johnny Depp as Louis XV, played as the opening night film. The premiere marked Depp’s highest profile appearance since the conclusion of his explosive trial last year with ex-wife Amber Heard.

    Justine Triet’s “Anatomy of a Fall” won the Palme d’Or at the 76th Cannes Film Festival in a ceremony Saturday that bestowed the festival’s prestigious top prize on an engrossing, rigorously plotted French courtroom drama that puts a marriage on trial.

    “Anatomy of a Fall,” which stars Sandra Hüller as a writer trying to prove her innocence in her husband’s death, is only the third film directed by a woman to win the Palme d’Or. One of the two previous winners, Julia Ducournau, was on this year’s jury.

    Cannes’ Grand Prix, its second prize, went to Jonathan Glazer’s “The Zone of Interest,” a chilling Martin Amis adaptation about a German family living next door to Auschwitz. Hüller also stars in that film.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-8052921-2′); });

    The awards were decided by a jury presided over by two-time Palme winner Ruben Östlund, the Swedish director who won the prize last year for “Triangle of Sadness.” The ceremony preceded the festival’s closing night film, the Pixar animation “Elemental.”

    Remarkably, the award for “Anatomy of a Fall” gives the indie distributor Neon its fourth straight Palme winners. Neon, which acquired the film after its premiere in Cannes, also backed “Triangle of Sadness,”Ducournau’s “Titane” and Bong Joon Ho’s “Parasite,” which it steered to a best picture win at the Academy Awards.

    Triet was presented the Palme by Jane Fonda, who recalled coming to Cannes in 1963 when, she said, there were no female filmmakers competing “and it never even occurred to us that there was something wrong with that.” This year, a record seven out of the 21 films in competition at Cannes were directed by women.

    After a rousing standing ovation, Triet, the 44-year-old French filmmaker, spoke passionately about the protests that have roiled France this year over reforms to pension plans and the retirement age. Several protests were held during Cannes this year, but demonstrations were — as they have been in many high-profile locations throughout France — banned from the area around the Palais des Festivals. Protesters were largely relegated to the outskirts of Cannes.

    “The protests were denied and repressed in a shocking way,” said Triet, who linked that governmental influence to that in cinema. “The merchandizing of culture, defended by a liberal government, is breaking the French cultural exception.”

    “This award is dedicated to all the young women directors and all the young male directors and all those who cannot manage to shoot films today,” she added. “We must give them the space I occupied 15 years ago in a less hostile world where it was still possible to make mistakes and start again.”

    After the ceremony, Triet reflected on being the third female director to win the Palme, following Ducournau and Jane Campion (“The Piano”). “Things are truly changing,” she said.

    Speaking to reporters, Triet was joined by her star, Hüller, whose performance was arguably the most acclaimed of the festival. (The festival encourages juries not to give films more than one award.) But

    “Anatomy of a Fall” did pocket one other sought-after prize: the Palme Dog. The honor given to the best canine in the festival’s films went to the film’s border collie, Snoop.

    The jury prize went to Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki’s “Fallen Leaves,” a deadpan love story about a romance that blooms in a loveless workaday Helsinki where dispatches from the war in Ukraine regularly play on the radio.

    Best actor went to veteran Japanese star Koji Yakusho, who plays a reflective, middle-aged Tokyo man who cleans toilets in Wim Wenders’ “Perfect Days,” a gentle, quotidian character study.

    The Turkish actor Merve Dizdar took best actress for the Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s “About Dry Grasses.” Ceylan’s expansive tale is set in snowy eastern Anatolia about a teacher, Samet (Deniz Celiloğlu), accused of misconduct by a young female student. Dizdar plays a friend both attracted and repelled by Samet.

    “I understand what it’s like to be a woman in this area of the country,” said Dizdar. “I would like to dedicate this prize to all the women who are fighting to exist and overcome difficulties in this world and to retrain hope.”

    Vietnamese-French director Tràn Anh Hùng took best director for “Pot-au-Feu,” a lush, foodie love story starring Juliette Binoche and Benoît Magimel and set in a 19th century French gourmet château.

    Best screenplay was won by Yuji Sakamoto for “Monster.” Sakamoto penned Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda’s nuanced drama, with shifting perspectives, about two boys struggling for acceptance in their school at home. “Monster” also won the Queer Palm, an honor bestowed by journalists for the festival’s strongest LGBTQ-themed film.

    Quentin Tarantino, who won Cannes’ top award for “Pulp Fiction,” attended the ceremony to present a tribute to filmmaker Roger Corman. Tarantino praised Corman for filling him and countless moviegoers with “unadulterated cinema pleasure.”

    “My cinema is uninhibited, full of excess and fun,” said Corman, the independent film maverick. “I feel like this what Cannes is about.”

    The festival’s Un Certain Regard section handed out its awards on Friday, giving the top prize to Molly Manning Walker’s debut feature, “How to Have Sex.”
    Saturday’s ceremony drew to close a Cannes edition that hasn’t lacked spectacle, stars or controversy.

    The biggest wattage premieres came out of competition. Martin Scorsese debuted his Osage murders epic “Killers of the Flower Moon,” a sprawling vision of American exploitation with Leonardo DiCaprio and Lily Gladstone. “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” Harrison Ford’s Indy farewell, launched with a tribute to Ford. Wes Anderson premiered “Asteroid City.”

    The festival opened on a note of controversy. “Jeanne du Barry,” a period drama co-starring Johnny Depp as Louis XV, played as the opening night film. The premiere marked Depp’s highest profile appearance since the conclusion of his explosive trial last year with ex-wife Amber Heard.

  • Wes Anderson on his new ’50s-set film ‘Asteroid City,’ AI and all those TikTok videos

    By Associated Press

    CANNES: When Wes Anderson comes down from Paris for the Cannes Film Festival in the south of France, he and his actors don’t stay in one of Cannes’ luxury hotels but more than an hour down the coast and well outside the frenzy of the festival.

    “When we arrived here yesterday, we arrived at a calm, peaceful hotel,” Anderson said in an interview. “We’re one hour away, but it’s a total normal life.”

    Normal life can mean something different in a Wes Anderson film, and that may be doubly so in his latest, “Asteroid City.” It’s among Anderson’s most charmingly chock-full creations, a much-layered, ’50s-set fusion of science fiction, midcentury theater and about a hundred other influences ranging from Looney Tunes to “Bad Day at Black Rock.”

    “Asteroid City,” which Focus Features will release June 16, premiered Tuesday in Cannes. Anderson and his starry cast — including Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Steve Carell, Margot Robbie, Bryan Cranston, Jeffrey Wright and Adrien Brody — arrived all together in a coach bus.

    The film, which Anderson wrote with Roman Coppola, takes place in a Southwest desert town where a group of characters, some of them nursing an unspoken grief, gather for various reasons, be it a stargazing convention or a broken-down car. But even that story is part of Russian Doll fiction. It’s a play being performed — which, itself, is being filmed for a TV broadcast.

    This image released by Focus Features shows writer-director Wes Anderson on the set of ‘Asteroid City.’ (Photo | AP)

    All of which is to say “Asteroid City” is going to give all those Tik Tok videos made in Anderson’s distinct, diorama style fresh fodder for new social-media replicas, both human-made and AI-crafted.

    Anderson spoke about those Tik Toks in an interview the day before “Asteroid City” debuted in Cannes, as well as other questions of style and inspiration in “Asteroid City,” a sun-dried and melancholic work of vintage Anderson density.

    “I do feel like this might be a movie that benefits from being seen twice,” Anderson said. “Brian De Palma liked it the first time and had a much bigger reaction on the second time. But what can you say? You can’t make a movie and say, ‘I think it’s best everyone sees it twice.’”

    AP: It’s quite a treat to read in the movie’s opening credits “Jeff Goldblum as the alien,” before you even know there’s an alien. That seems to announce something.

    ANDERSON: We naturally were debating whether this is necessary in the opening credits. I said, “You know, it’s a good thing.” It’s a little foreshadowing. In our story, it’s not an expansive role. But part of what the movie is to me and to Roman, it has something to do with actors and this strange thing that they do. What does it mean when you give a performance? If somebody has probably written something and then you study it and learn and you have an interpretation. But essentially you take yourself and put it in the movie. And then you take a bunch of people taking themselves and putting themselves in the movie. They have their faces and their voices, and they’re more complex than anything than even the AI is going to come up with. The AI has to know them to invent them. They do all these emotional things that are usually a mystery to me. I usually stand back and watch and it’s always quite moving.

    AP: The alien may signal doom for the characters of “Asteroid City,” and there are atomic bomb tests in the area. Is this your version of an apocalyptic movie?

    ANDERSON: The apocalyptic stuff was all there. There probably were no aliens, but there certainly was a strong interest in them. There certainly were atom bombs going off. And there had just been I think we can say the worst war in the history of mankind. There’s a certain point where I remember saying to Roman: “I think not only is one of these men suffering some kind of post-traumatic stress that he’s totally unaware of, but he’s sharing it with his family in a way that’s going to end up with Woodstock. But also: They should all be armed. So everybody’s got a pistol.”

    AP: Since maybe “Grand Budapest Hotel,” you seem to be adding more and more frames within frames for Russian doll movies of one layer after another. Your first movies, “Bottle Rocket” and “Rushmore” are starting to seem almost realistic by comparison. Do you think your films are getting more elaborate as you get older?

    ANDERSON: Ultimately, every time I make a movie, I’m just trying to figure out what I want to do and then figure out how to make it such that we do what I want. It’s usually an emotional choice and it’s usually quite mysterious to me how they end up with how end up. The most improvisation aspect of making a movie to me is writing it. I have a tendency to obsess over the stage directions, which are not in the movie. With “Grand Budapest” we had multiple layers to it, and “French Dispatch” certainly had that. This one is really split in two but there’s more complex layers. We know the main movie is the play. But we also have a behind-the-scenes making of the play. We also have a guy telling us that this is a television broadcast of a hypothetical play that doesn’t actually exist. It’s not my intention to make it complicated. It’s just me doing what I want.

    AP: Have you seen all the TikTok videos that have been made in your style? They’re everywhere.

    ANDERSON: No, I haven’t seen it. I’ve never seen any TikTok, actually. I’ve not seen the ones related to me or the ones not related to me. And I’ve not seen any of the AI-type stuff related to me.

    AP: You could look at it as a new generation discovering your films.

    ANDERSON: The only reason I don’t look at the stuff is because it probably takes the things that I do the same again and again. We’re forced to accept when I make a movie, it’s got to be made by me. But what I will say is anytime anyone’s responding with enthusiasm to these movies I’ve made over these many years, that’s a nice, lucky thing. So I’m happy to have it. But I have a feeling I would just feel like: Gosh, is that what I’m doing? So I protect myself.

    AP: People sometimes miss in your films that the characters operating in such precise worlds are deeply flawed and comic. The ornate tableaux may be exact but the people are all imperfect.

    ANDERSON: That’s what I would aspire to, anyway. In the end, it’s a lot more important to me what it’s about. I spend a lot more time writing the movie than doing anything to do with making it. It’s the actors who are the center of it all to me. You can’t simulate them. Or maybe you can. If you look at the AI, maybe I’ll see that you can.

    AP: In “Asteroid City,” you combined an interest in really disparate ideas — the ’50s theater of Sam Shepard with the automat. How does a combination like that happen?

    ANDERSON: We had an idea that we wanted to do a ‘50s setting and it’s got these two sides. One is New York theater. There’s a picture of Paul Newman sitting with a T-shirt on and a foot on the chair in the Actors Studio. It was about that world of summer stock, behind the scenes of that, and these towns that were built and never moved into. That becomes the East Coast and the West Coat and the theater and the cinema. There’s a series of dichotomies. And one of the central things was we wanted to make a character for Jason Schwartzman that was different from what he’s done before. The things that go into making a movie, it eventually becomes too much to even pin down. So many things get added into the mix, which I like. And part of what the movie is about is what you can’t control in life. In a way, the invention of a movie is one of those things.

    CANNES: When Wes Anderson comes down from Paris for the Cannes Film Festival in the south of France, he and his actors don’t stay in one of Cannes’ luxury hotels but more than an hour down the coast and well outside the frenzy of the festival.

    “When we arrived here yesterday, we arrived at a calm, peaceful hotel,” Anderson said in an interview. “We’re one hour away, but it’s a total normal life.”

    Normal life can mean something different in a Wes Anderson film, and that may be doubly so in his latest, “Asteroid City.” It’s among Anderson’s most charmingly chock-full creations, a much-layered, ’50s-set fusion of science fiction, midcentury theater and about a hundred other influences ranging from Looney Tunes to “Bad Day at Black Rock.”googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-8052921-2’); });

    “Asteroid City,” which Focus Features will release June 16, premiered Tuesday in Cannes. Anderson and his starry cast — including Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Steve Carell, Margot Robbie, Bryan Cranston, Jeffrey Wright and Adrien Brody — arrived all together in a coach bus.

    The film, which Anderson wrote with Roman Coppola, takes place in a Southwest desert town where a group of characters, some of them nursing an unspoken grief, gather for various reasons, be it a stargazing convention or a broken-down car. But even that story is part of Russian Doll fiction. It’s a play being performed — which, itself, is being filmed for a TV broadcast.

    This image released by Focus Features shows writer-director Wes Anderson on the set of ‘Asteroid City.’ (Photo | AP)

    All of which is to say “Asteroid City” is going to give all those Tik Tok videos made in Anderson’s distinct, diorama style fresh fodder for new social-media replicas, both human-made and AI-crafted.

    Anderson spoke about those Tik Toks in an interview the day before “Asteroid City” debuted in Cannes, as well as other questions of style and inspiration in “Asteroid City,” a sun-dried and melancholic work of vintage Anderson density.

    “I do feel like this might be a movie that benefits from being seen twice,” Anderson said. “Brian De Palma liked it the first time and had a much bigger reaction on the second time. But what can you say? You can’t make a movie and say, ‘I think it’s best everyone sees it twice.’”

    AP: It’s quite a treat to read in the movie’s opening credits “Jeff Goldblum as the alien,” before you even know there’s an alien. That seems to announce something.

    ANDERSON: We naturally were debating whether this is necessary in the opening credits. I said, “You know, it’s a good thing.” It’s a little foreshadowing. In our story, it’s not an expansive role. But part of what the movie is to me and to Roman, it has something to do with actors and this strange thing that they do. What does it mean when you give a performance? If somebody has probably written something and then you study it and learn and you have an interpretation. But essentially you take yourself and put it in the movie. And then you take a bunch of people taking themselves and putting themselves in the movie. They have their faces and their voices, and they’re more complex than anything than even the AI is going to come up with. The AI has to know them to invent them. They do all these emotional things that are usually a mystery to me. I usually stand back and watch and it’s always quite moving.

    AP: The alien may signal doom for the characters of “Asteroid City,” and there are atomic bomb tests in the area. Is this your version of an apocalyptic movie?

    ANDERSON: The apocalyptic stuff was all there. There probably were no aliens, but there certainly was a strong interest in them. There certainly were atom bombs going off. And there had just been I think we can say the worst war in the history of mankind. There’s a certain point where I remember saying to Roman: “I think not only is one of these men suffering some kind of post-traumatic stress that he’s totally unaware of, but he’s sharing it with his family in a way that’s going to end up with Woodstock. But also: They should all be armed. So everybody’s got a pistol.”

    AP: Since maybe “Grand Budapest Hotel,” you seem to be adding more and more frames within frames for Russian doll movies of one layer after another. Your first movies, “Bottle Rocket” and “Rushmore” are starting to seem almost realistic by comparison. Do you think your films are getting more elaborate as you get older?

    ANDERSON: Ultimately, every time I make a movie, I’m just trying to figure out what I want to do and then figure out how to make it such that we do what I want. It’s usually an emotional choice and it’s usually quite mysterious to me how they end up with how end up. The most improvisation aspect of making a movie to me is writing it. I have a tendency to obsess over the stage directions, which are not in the movie. With “Grand Budapest” we had multiple layers to it, and “French Dispatch” certainly had that. This one is really split in two but there’s more complex layers. We know the main movie is the play. But we also have a behind-the-scenes making of the play. We also have a guy telling us that this is a television broadcast of a hypothetical play that doesn’t actually exist. It’s not my intention to make it complicated. It’s just me doing what I want.

    AP: Have you seen all the TikTok videos that have been made in your style? They’re everywhere.

    ANDERSON: No, I haven’t seen it. I’ve never seen any TikTok, actually. I’ve not seen the ones related to me or the ones not related to me. And I’ve not seen any of the AI-type stuff related to me.

    AP: You could look at it as a new generation discovering your films.

    ANDERSON: The only reason I don’t look at the stuff is because it probably takes the things that I do the same again and again. We’re forced to accept when I make a movie, it’s got to be made by me. But what I will say is anytime anyone’s responding with enthusiasm to these movies I’ve made over these many years, that’s a nice, lucky thing. So I’m happy to have it. But I have a feeling I would just feel like: Gosh, is that what I’m doing? So I protect myself.

    AP: People sometimes miss in your films that the characters operating in such precise worlds are deeply flawed and comic. The ornate tableaux may be exact but the people are all imperfect.

    ANDERSON: That’s what I would aspire to, anyway. In the end, it’s a lot more important to me what it’s about. I spend a lot more time writing the movie than doing anything to do with making it. It’s the actors who are the center of it all to me. You can’t simulate them. Or maybe you can. If you look at the AI, maybe I’ll see that you can.

    AP: In “Asteroid City,” you combined an interest in really disparate ideas — the ’50s theater of Sam Shepard with the automat. How does a combination like that happen?

    ANDERSON: We had an idea that we wanted to do a ‘50s setting and it’s got these two sides. One is New York theater. There’s a picture of Paul Newman sitting with a T-shirt on and a foot on the chair in the Actors Studio. It was about that world of summer stock, behind the scenes of that, and these towns that were built and never moved into. That becomes the East Coast and the West Coat and the theater and the cinema. There’s a series of dichotomies. And one of the central things was we wanted to make a character for Jason Schwartzman that was different from what he’s done before. The things that go into making a movie, it eventually becomes too much to even pin down. So many things get added into the mix, which I like. And part of what the movie is about is what you can’t control in life. In a way, the invention of a movie is one of those things.