Sean Baker, director of the film that won the Palme d'Or at Cannes Stillspoke about the success of his latest film during an event at the San Sebastian Film Festival on Saturday, admitting that he won't be capitalizing on the excitement to try his hand at big-budget films like those from Marvel.
Baker spoke to a packed house about his film, which is getting Oscar buzz, which follows Anora (Mikey Madison), a young Brooklyn prostitute, who gets the chance to live out a Cinderella story when she meets and impulsively marries an oligarch's son (Mark Eydelshteyn). But the fairytale is threatened when her fiancé's parents decide to have the wedding annulled. The story has drawn comparisons to Julia Roberts's backup film Pretty Woman.
Baker's follow-up to Red rocket, Still received high praise from critics at Cannes. The film has been getting a lot of airtime ahead of awards season, debuting at Cannes before screening at Venice, TIFF, and now San Sebastian.
“It was my dream come true, so overwhelming at the time,” Baker said of his Palme d'Or award, which he received from Star Wars creator George Lucas. “I think because this has happened now in my career, where I'm confident in the movies that I'm making and happy with the movies that I'm able to make, it basically allows me to continue to make the movies that I want to make the way that I want to make them.”
When asked what kind of doors become a Palme d'Or winner opens in the film industry, Baker vowed to stick to working-class, lesser-known stories. “I'm not looking for it to get a Marvel movie, basically,” he said. “I'm not looking for it to open doors with studios, that's never happened and that's certainly not my intention now.”
The American director said that, especially in the United States, it is difficult to make “this kind of film”. “I mean films with challenging subjects”. But it is also about casting: Baker admits that he casts his films in a way that allows him to have “total control”, but he doesn't think of A-list stars in the process. “First of all, I always think about who is right for the character”.
Baker has spoken of not siding with a single political view in his films to guard against alienating particular audiences. He said, “Hopefully, you use the film to spark discussion between people who maybe have opposing or different views. If I'm preaching, I'm really just alienating everyone who doesn't agree with that ideology… If I'm going to have politics in my film, it has to be buried. It has to be subversive.”
He called the political landscape in his home country “extremely partisan.” “I've had extremists who have appreciated my film, Democracy now! liked it, and so did Ben Shapiro,” he said. So it was crazy. It was cool. I actually said, 'Okay, we're onto something. We're doing something.'”
Baker wrote, directed and edited Still himself. He said he would have liked to give himself more credit for his editing, but “ridiculously” his own union won't let him have “edited, written and directed by Sean Baker” in the opening title sequences of his film. “Really, you're finding the movie in the editing.”
Mikey Madison in 'Anora'.
Cannes Film Festival
But what got the audience laughing was when he talked about how he got carried away with decisions about the soundtrack before approval was sought, and even revealed that he found himself “in love” with clips from a certain song only to be denied the rights to use it. “How could I not have 'Gucci Flip Flops' in my movie?” he said, “But they wanted too much money. [Laughs.] And what we came up with, I actually liked the most.”
Law DAY'S Still review, “As a character, played by Mikey Madison with a sweetness that humanizes even the most transactional situations and a defensiveness that makes her dangerous when threatened, Anora, who calls herself Ani, stands tall alongside the bravely resilient protagonists of Baker's last handful of films, from Little Star AND mandarin Through The Florida Project AND Red rocket.”
Still will be released in theaters on October 18 via Neon. The San Sebastian Film Festival, which kicked off with the world premiere of the erotic feature film Emmanuelle Friday evening, September 20th to 28th.