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Alice KanterianAlice is a filmfestivals.com correspondent, covering Venice and other international film festivals.  Festival de Cannes - Palm d'Or for Sean Baker, the revival of independent American cinema and other trends of the 77th edition
"This film is magnificent, full of humanity (...) It broke our hearts with all of us," said the president of the jury, American filmmaker Greta Gerwig on May 25 before presenting the ultimate prize to Sean Baker.
"Anora" is the 8th film in the career of the American filmmaker.
Sean Baker, the last truly independent "indie" director of the United States, director of "Tangerine," "The Florida Project" and "Red Rocket," an empathetic explorer of American society, a compassionate observer of marginalized people, won the coveted Palme d'Or that he dedicated to all sex workers.
This victory is dedicated to "all sex workers in the past, present and future" Sean Baker commented!
A festival where nudity, even up frontal can be found everywhere. In "The Substance", a body horror film signed by Coralie Fargeat, was awarded on 25.05 the best screenplay, and Demi Moore, one of the main actresses, would have deserved the trophy for best artistic performance.
That dedication of Sean Baker may amaze, but it can be interpreted as a kind of branding of this 77th edition of the festival, because most films explore sexuality. On the surface,it's really about fighting against stigmatisation, but it's about dignity.
Be it transgender as in Jacques Audiard's film "Emilia Perez" with an impressive performance by the four actresses Karla Sofía Gascón, Zoe Saldana, Selena Gomez and Adriana Paz, awarded in the ensemble with the award for best female performance. 4 award-winning actresses is with a novum for Cannes, another even more important fact is that for the first time in the history of the festival a transgender woman is awarded with this prestigious trophy: the Spanish actress Karla Sofía Gascón!
Be it exploratory as in the film "Kinds of kindness" composed of three stories, independent of each other, in the first of them with the exchange of sex partners. American actor Jesse Plemons was awarded with the trophy for best male performance in this absurd comedy directed by Yorgos Lanthimos.
But comimg back of this year Palm d'Or winner, Sean Baker's new film titled "Anora," named after the film's protagonist artistic name is a feminist comedy that presents not only the lifestyle of Brooklyn where the action takes place, but also the diverse communities that populate this multiethnic neighborhood.
"Anora" is a film that encompasses two cultures, the Russian and the American, I read somewhere. Infact, the film actually explores three cultures. Armenian is joined, Armenian is spoken, and Armenian traditions are even shown in a scene that takes place in an Armenian church. Two of the gangsters are Armenians, their mission is to remove Ani, and annul her marriage to Vanya.
No wonder the Armenian side is included in the film, the idea of placing the action within the Russian/Armenian community in Brooklyn started with actor Karren Karagulian already in 2009. In the film, Karren plays Torros, one of the Russian oligarch's men. Karagulian and Baker are friends, they collaborated on "Starlet" in 2012, "Tangerine" in 2015 and "Red rocket" in 2021! Baker developed the idea, wrote the script.
At the awards ceremony, Sean thanked his friend Karren. The other Armenian actor is Vache Tovmassyan, he plays another mobster named Garnick. Both are quite harmless and we are dea
ling with a mafia persifage rather than a real threat.
The film begins as a modern version of Pretty Woman or Cinderella facing the world of capitalism. A young woman named Anora works as a stripper. At the club she meets a new client. This is Vanya, a funny and spoiled son of a Russian oligarch, who proposes to contract her as a partner for a week in Las Vegas. Their adventures in Las Vegas culminate in their wedding on a mad impulse, arousing the anger of Vanya's parents.
The film takes a comical turn when a trio of mobsters arrive at the home of the newlyweds and Vanya's parents who fly their private jet to New York to annul the marriage.
Baker wrote the screenplay with actress Mikey Madison in mind for the title role. Already a shooting star, the success of Cannes will surely propel her to Hollywood career. He had discovered it in 2019 in "Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood" and had seen her again in 2022 in "Scream 5." When they met, she told him that her favorite movie was "Possession," and he understood that they had similar tastes. Living in LA in the same neighborhood, he involved her in the process of creating the character. Madison was enthusiastic about the project, for which she even learned Russian, to speak with a different Brooklyn accent from California, and even took pole-dancing lessons over a three-month period for a 10-second sequence in the film.
At the press conference, the filmmaker explained the secret of his success: his ability to choose actors. And indeed, Baker shows great skill when it comes to casting.
In addition to the remarkable Mickey Madison, the cast included the most en vogue Russian actor to date. This is Yuriy Borisov. In addition to him, another Russian actress is part of the cast: Darya Ekamasova. She plays Galina, Vanja's mother, the oligarch's wife, a very powerful woman who tries to intimidate Ani. But Ani isn't the type to be easily intimidated by being portrayed by the American filmmaker as a modern Amazonian — she fights, bites, nudges. The actress even refused to call stuntmen or a counselor for intimate scenes.
The American actress' in collaboration with the talented actor Mark Eydelshtein (or Eidelstein, we found both versions) who is on her debut role couldn't work better. This young Ukrainian actor who plays Vanya so convincingly was recruited by Sean Baker from the CastingForum platform. Sean Baker adores his actors, their choice being the most important ingredient in a movie, according to him, and perhaps also the recipe for his success.
He is also known to resort to alternative methods to find the ideal actor and not necessarily a follower of the actual casting with actors represented by agents, the only famous actor with whom he collaborated in the past being William Dafoe. It even happened in the supermarket to recruit actors or from Instagram!
CastingForum.com this innovative new platform created by entrepreneur Dasha Timbush that I had the opportunity to talk to, propels diversity, giving a chance to unknown actors who are not represented by agents. In Cannes, in front of actor Mark Eidelstein, the young entrepreneur launched at the American Pavilion, during the festival, a new basic element that simplifies the recruitment of actors - artificial intelligence that finds in record time the ideal actor according to the casting directors requirements. The big studios are using CastingForum according to Dasha! Registration is free for actors.
American director Sean Baker's film managed to win the award at the expense of the other 21 films in competition, including established directors such as Francis Ford Coppola and David Cronenberg, and successful ones of the new generation such as Yorgos Lanthimos and Ali Abbasi.
Veni, vedi, vici, Sean Baker returned winning on the Croisette continuing the series of films focused on sex workers, after "Red Rocket", the film selected at Cannes in 2021 and "The Florida Project" in 2017, starring Willem Dafoe. Sean Baker feared the film would stir controversy, but the film's reception at Cannes was enthusiastic.
In "The Shameless" director Konstantin Bogdanov's film, in Cannes in "Un certain regard" is also about a woman practicing "the oldest profession in the world", but this time in India. Adding to the violence surrounding her is another element: she falls in love with a 17-year-old girl.
The Indian actress Anasuya Sengupta was awarded with the trophy for best female actress in "Un certain regard".
It seems Sean Baker is quite right, "the oldest profession in the world" continues to fascinate.
Alice Kanterian
Photograph courtosy of Scott A Garfitt
02.06.2024 | Alice Kanterian's blog Cat. : Fest. circuit FESTIVALS
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