Cannes Film Fest 2024: Director Sean Baker, Winner of Palme d’Or (“Anora”) on Movie Culture

‘Anora' Palme D'Or Winner Sean Baker On The Plight Of Theatrical: "Discouraging" But Sees "A Rising Film Culture" – Cannes

‘Anora’ director, Sean Baker

The movie is about a young sex worker, played by Mikey Madison, who gets her chance at a Cinderella story in Anora.

Accepting the Palme d’Or today for his new film Anora, Sean Baker spoke about the survival of big-screen cinema.

He hopes his movie is “certainly one step toward helping” theaters. “You see theaters closing every day unfortunately. I follow a Twitter feed about theaters closing,” reflected Baker on the plight of theatrical, “I grew up going to movie, I grew up going to theaters, that’s where I want my movies shown as a filmmaker.”

But there’s some hope per Baker: “I see a rising film culture in New York, Los Angeles, Austin, and San Francisco. I see young people who want to go and see movies in a theater.”

“This isn’t exactly a mainstream movie,” said Baker about his latest which follows a stripper played by Mikey Madison (Better Things) who marries a Russian oligarch’s son. “Hopefully it reminds mainstream audiences that these films still exist.”

Given his Russian heavy cast, Baker was asked whether Anora was getting a release in Russia. He responded, “Hard question for me to answer to the embargo; we don’t know. Let’s see what the future holds.”

Anora repped domestic distributor NEON’s fifth Palme d’Or winner in a row.

'Anora' director Sean Baker. — ‘Anora’ director Sean Baker. Courtesy of Getty Images

Sean Baker, director of Cannes’ Palme d’Or winner Anora, discussed the success of his latest movie at the San Sebastian Fest, noting that he won’t be using the momentum to take on big-budget studio films like Marvel’s.

Baker spoke about his film, which follows Anora (Mikey Madison), a young sex worker from Brooklyn, who gets her chance at a Cinderella story when she meets and impulsively marries the son of an oligarch (Mark Eydelshteyn). But the fairytale is threatened when her fiancé’s parents set out to get the marriage annulled.

Baker’s follow-up to Red Rocket, Anora earned high praise from critics out of Cannes Fest, and then played at TIFF and San Sebastian.

“It was my dream come true, so very overwhelming in the moment,” Baker said of his Pame d’Or award. “I think because this happened now in my career, where I’m secure in the films that I’m making and happy with the films that I’m able to make, this just basically allows me to continue making the movies want to make the way I want to make them.”

When asked about the kinds of doors that becoming a Palme d’Or winner opens in the film industry, Baker vowed to stick to movies about working class, lesser-known stories. “Essentially, I’m not looking for it to get me a Marvel film,” he said. “I’m not looking for it to open doors with studios, that’s never been and is certainly not my intention now.”

The American filmmaker said particularly in the U.S., it’s difficult to get “these sort of movies” made. “What I’m referring to are like films with challenging subject matter,” he said. It’s also about casting — Baker admits to casting his own films so he has “total control” — but he doesn’t think about A-listers in the process. “First and foremost, I always think about who is right for the character.”

Baker spoke about not siding with a single political view in his films out of caution that he would alienate a particular audience. He said: “You’re using film, hopefully, to spark discussion amongst people who perhaps have opposing views or different views. If I’m preaching, it’s really just alienating everybody who doesn’t agree with that ideology. If I am going to have politics in my film, they have to be buried. They have to be subversive.”

He called the political landscape in his native U.S. “extremely partisan.” “I’ve had the extremes liking my film, Democracy Now! liked it, so did Ben Shapiro,” he said. “So it was crazy. It was good. I actually said, ‘OK, we’re on to something. We’re doing something.’”

Baker wrote, directed and edited Anora himself. He said he wished he could give himself more credit for his editing but “ridiculously” his own union doesn’t allow himself to have “edited, written and directed by Sean Baker” in his film’s opening title sequences. “Really, you’re finding the film in the edit.”

Mikey Madison in ‘Anora’. Cannes Film Festival

But what prompted audience laughter was when he discussed getting carried away with soundtrack decisions before approval is sought and even revealed he finds himself “falling in love” with sequences to 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 more.”

As a character, played by Mikey Madison with charm that humanizes the most transactional situations. Anora, who goes by Ani, stands alongside the resilient protagonists of Baker’s last films, from Starlet and Tangerine through The Florida Project and Red Rocket.”

Anora will be released in theaters on October 18 by Neon.

Cannes Film Fest 2024: Director Sean Baker, Winner of Palme d’Or (“Anora”) on Movie Culture

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