Cannes, France (AP) — The Cannes Film Festival played host to the three-star directorial debut of Scarlett Johansson, Kristen Stewart and relative rookie Harris Dickinson.
Their films are very different, but they are the realization of a long-standing dream of being behind the camera. All three films are part of Cannes' UN-specific respect section and have helped launch the careers of directors like Yorgos Lantimos, Lynn Ramsey and Molly Manning Walker.
Dickinson, 28, is a promising actor known for “Baby Girl,” “Where the Crawdads Sing,” and is known for Palme d'or Winning's “The Triangle of Sorrows.” I worked for years to develop His film “Ultin”.
Johansson has been a star since her teenage years and a two-time Oscar acting nominee who played a black widow in multiple Marvel films, bringing Cannes this week the film “Eleanor the Great” about a non-occurrence family that collaborates with the Holocaust story of her late friend.
Stewart, who is also an Oscar performer, debuted last week “The Chronology of Water,” an adaptation of Lydia Yunavich's 2011 memoir.
The UN Certain Respect Section awards will be announced on Friday, the day before the Cannes Film Festival closes.
That's what the actor-turned-director had to say about his first foray into making a film from behind the camera.
Harris Dickinson of “Urchin”
“I wanted to direct from a very young age. I wanted to make a film,” Dickinson said. He even had a web sketch series. “That was my first love and I was just making things.”
Dickinson's profile as an actor has exploded in recent years, but his desire for director was so strong that he began to say no to the role.
“'Urchin' was everything I could think of. It was poured from me. It was everything that was in my heart,” he said. “It's easy to say no when you have something to take you out of it, do you know?
The film stars Frank Dylan as a homeless Londoner struggling with drug addiction.
Scarlett Johansson from “Eleanor the Great”
Johansson is currently one of the most famous stars in the world. She is also the most respected, winning two Oscar nominations in 2020 for “Marriage Story” and “JoJo Rabbit.”
Her success as an actor helped her take on a new role in the film, including producing.
“At one point, I was working well enough so I stopped worrying about not working or being related. This is very liberating,” says Johansson. “I think that's something that all the actors have felt for a long time before they don't. I wouldn't have been confident in directing this film 10 years ago.”
She says that imagining how to make a film throughout her career is part of her process: “I'm even thinking if it was something I was reading and thinking, 'I can imagine this in my mind',' or if I'm making and thinking, 'I'm inevitably dictating some elements of this.' ”
New York Set's “Eleanor the Great” stars 94-year-old June Squibb, who takes over the story of a friend of Holocaust survival as his own from sadness and loneliness.
Kristen Stewart on “Water Chronology”
“It was eight years and then a really accelerated push. It was a clear comparison, but birth,” says Stewart of the film. “I was really pregnant and I was screaming for a bloody murder.”
In the interview, Stewart talked about challenging the myth that men are suitable for directors.
“It's really not fair to think it's difficult to make a film as long as you need to know things. We have technical directors, but Jesus Christ, you hire a crew. “My lack of experience made this film.”
Yuknavitch's memoirs tell the story of her surviving sexual abuse by her father and how she was evacuated to competitive swimming and later writing.
Stewart expressed doubt that she provided much in terms of useful direction to film star Imogen Poots, but the actor disagrees.
“Kristen is incredibly present, but like plants, this ability has the ability to pick up small shifts in the atmosphere like 'Wait a minute',” Puets laughed at Stewart. “This insane brain is playing with it, and it's a skill set that comes in the form of intense curiosity.”
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