- Apple TV’s “Silo” Falters in Transitional Third Season (July 2, 2026)
It can often be a blessing and a curse when a series gets a two-season order. Yes, it’s nice to give creators a vote of confidence to extend their storytelling across multiple seasons. On the other hand, it sometimes leads to seasons like the third of Apple TV +’s once-excellent “Silo,” an outing that feels far too much like table-setting for the fourth and final chapter. Don’t get it wrong: This is still intelligent, ambitious science fiction. But there’s a sense of urgency that surged through the first two seasons that’s just lacking here. Splitting the storytelling between two time periods, tied together through a theme of corruption and false narratives, hints at the impressive reach of the writing this season, but it’s one of the choices that also leads to a sense that this season is a bridge instead of a destination. “Silo” has been one of the best shows on TV during its first two season; it’s just barely good enough in is third to keep viewers excited to see how it all ends.
The last season of “Silo” ended with two serious cliffhangers regarding the mortality of two characters so come back after you’ve watched the third season premiere if you don’t want to know how at least one of them ended. Whether or not Bernard Holland (Tim Robbins) survived the fireball in the season-two climax is held for long enough that it won’t be spoiled here, but we learn quickly that Juliette Nichols (Rebecca Ferguson) made it back from Silo 17 to her people, who she now serves as the silo’s Mayor. The small problem is that Juliette doesn’t remember what happened to her with Jimmy (Steve Zahn) and the other silo. And her amnesia is more than just a product of the explosion, as we learn that she is being drugged to keep her memories repressed. How people in power rewrite history to serve their needs is one of the strongest themes of season three as Juliette, a former leader of the rebellion, has become a pawn in a game to keep the people of the Silo in check.
Who’s playing this game? Believe it or not, Camille (Alexandria Riley) moves to a central role this season as the Wizard of this Underground Oz chooses her to be its liaison, replacing Bernard as a reticent villain for much of the season, to the surprise of her husband Robert (Common, doing his best work of the series to date this year). Part of the problem with season three is how much it sidelines previously fascinating characters like Juliette, Jimmy, and Bernard in favor of people like Camille, Knox (Shane McRae), and Shirley (Remmie Milner). It’s not that these performers are necessarily bad, but they have big shoes to fill when it comes to carrying “Silo” and there’s a bit of stumbling, especially in the first half of the season.
A similar problem invades the other half of the third season of “Silo,” which takes place much closer today than the show’s vision of a post-apocalyptic future. There was actually another sort of cliffhanger at the end of last year when the writers jumped back generations to introduce us to a congressman named Daniel (Ashley Zukerman) and a journalist named Helen (Jessica Henwick), hinting that we might learn a bit more about the origins of the silos. Actually, it’s a lot more than you might have imagined as about half of the third season of “Silo” takes place in this timeline, introducing us to Daniel’s sister (Jessica Brown Findlay), along with characters played by Laura Innes, Reed Birney, Matt Craven, and Colin Hanks, doing a nice riff on the timely issue of the icy inhumanity of the uber-wealthy.
It’s a good cast, but the writing in the “origin” half of “Silo” just doesn’t hum with the same urgency as the rest of the show. It’s a nearly impossible task to pivot from the survivor story that people have been watching since the season premiere—one that’s had unexpected deaths and a simmering rising tension of a rebellion—to a “how we got here” narrative that simply lacks that tension. The truth is that how the silos were constructed and why isn’t as immediate as how Juliette might lead a revolution against them. Imagine “Snowpiercer” if half the movie was about the people who built the train and laid down the tracks.
The less-interesting characters taking the spotlight and the drag of the early timeline make for the first season of “Silo” that often drags. Having said that, the ensemble is still strong enough and the concept sturdy enough that the show never completely collapses. It’s also a season that can be interesting to unpack thematically. The American people in the Silo Construction arc are being lied to about their safety in a way that makes the headlines about tech sector doomsday prepping even more disconcerting, and the people of Silo 18 have been lied to for most of their lives about just about everything. At its core, it’s a show about how societies are manipulated by the Powers That Be, and that maintains.
Season three of “Silo” ultimately feels like an extensive bit of table setting. Without spoiling, multiple arcs and characters intersect in a finale that sets up season four for a climactic battle that could be one of the best shows of whatever year it airs. If that happens, this transitional season might arguably have all been worth it. Only then will we know if “Silo” will rise again.
Whole season screened for review. Returns on Apple TV+ on July 3rd.
- Annecy 2026: The City of Animation (July 2, 2026)
Every June, Annecy, a sun-drenched lakeside town in France’s Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, becomes the world capital of animation, hosting a festival that has grown in prestige over its six-decade existence. It is with that spirit in mind that CITIA, the organization that runs the event, decided to expand the concept by turning Annecy into a year-round rendezvous for animation lovers. Specifically, this year’s festival, which ran two weeks later than usual because of the G7 taking place in the region, coincided with the inauguration of the Cité du Cinéma d’Animation, a permanent exhibition space and cinema located a stone’s throw from the Bonlieu Theater, the event’s primary screening venue.
The exhibition space, accessible free of charge during the inaugural weekend, houses a permanent exhibit that covers the overall history of animation, from the zoetrope to the advent of CGI, with sketches and props illustrating the evolution of the artform, alongside video commentary from directors who have attended the festival over the years (including Guillermo del Toro, Henry Selick and Wes Anderson). Temporary shows highlight current and upcoming projects, with Laika’s “Wildwood” being the hottest ticket. Puppets and sets from Travis Knight’s new stop motion movie were on display for everyone to see, although security was tight to an unusual degree: to prevent leaks (since the exhibit opened before the visuals were made public via a special presentation at Bonlieu), staff were instructed to put stickers on people’s phones to cover the cameras. A sound strategy, as it forced spectators to truly take in the first glimpse at what promised to be an epic journey to a new world.
Wildwood
Speaking of stop motion, the Aardman crew—founders Peter Lord and David Sproxton, “Wallace & Gromit” creator Nick Park, and others—were in town to celebrate the company’s 50th anniversary (technically 54th, but they’re counting from when they started using clay instead of hand-drawn animation). Their panel set the tone for the entire festival, not least because it was, for many attendees, the first time seeing this year’s Annecy trailer: shown before each screening, the video—humorously showing the city, the event, and its sponsors—is made by a different studio each year. In 2026, that honor belonged to Aardman, and the resulting short was a self-deprecating delight. By the end of Day 1, viewers were whistling along once the familiar “Wallace & Gromit” theme music kicked in to cap off the video.
The other recurring element every year is a second festival trailer, or rather, a series of them (they change according to the day or the venue), made by students from Les Gobelins, the foremost animation school in France. They usually pay tribute to the individual edition’s country in focus, but this vintage of the festival didn’t have one, owing to the Cité inauguration and the resulting desire to celebrate all forms of animation (regular proceedings will resume in 2027, with Colombia as the guest of honor). The Gobelins package followed suit, each gorgeously hand-drawn short referencing a different style, with the anime-inspired “Sparkle Ranger” attracting the loudest rounds of applause.
Due to the shift in dates, the festival had to make do without some titles that would otherwise have been sure things, such as “Toy Story 5”. One old friend that didn’t fail to show up was Illumination, a regular since the very first “Despicable Me” premiered at Annecy in 2010. Eight films in, the franchise is still ridiculously amusing, and “Minions & Monsters” is arguably the best of the bunch, as it fully embraces the potential for chaos tied to the yellow henchmen, unleashing them in the context of silent era Hollywood. Given how famously cinephile a nation France is, and how much the language informs the gibberish spoken by the Minions (voiced by franchise creator Pierre Coffin, who was raised in Paris), the festival’s opening ceremony was the ideal way to unveil this ode to creative insanity.
Iron Boy
The Feature Film Competition surveyed the best of global animation, some of it in collaboration with the other major French film event: out of eleven titles vying for the top prize, six had premiered in Cannes the month before. Naturally, national productions were a huge part of it, with “Iron Boy,” “In Waves,” “Lucy Lost” and “Viva Carmen!” gaining praise at both festivals. The remaining two Cannes veterans hailed from Japan (“We Are Aliens”) and the US (“Tangles”), and all six films exemplified the main unifying theme of the competition: aside from the Chinese production “Tana,” which used computer animation, all the entries were hand-drawn, showcasing the versatility of traditional techniques in one of the rare places where old school craft is not considered outdated.
In fact, “old school” is something that comes to mind when thinking of “The Violinist,” which took home the main prize. A co-production between Singapore and Spain (with additional funding from Italy), the film, directed by Ervin Han and Raúl García, is a simple yet affecting story of friendship born through music and then torn asunder when war keeps the two protagonists apart. A visual and aural trip down memory lane (the bulk of the movie is an extended flashback), its warm colors find their emotional match in the impeccably classic score.
The Sunrise File
Looking at the past century was a theme, most notably in another film with a Cannes connection: a few weeks ago, Croisette visitors were the first to see “Moulin,” a French drama about the fateful encounter between Resistance figurehead Jean Moulin and Gestapo officer Klaus Barbie; the latter returned in Annecy via “The Sunrise File,” a thriller recounting the complex relationship between the Israeli intelligence apparatus and a couple of Nazi hunters. Brian Cox lends his gruff tones to the aging Israeli secret agent whose memories are the basis of the narrative. Co-director Rupert Wyatt (“Rise of the Planet of the Apes”) makes his animation debut, with quietly devastating results.
The Contrechamp competition, showcasing films that go against the grain aesthetically or narratively, featured one of the biggest swings when it comes to a movie with a marked contrast between subject matter and depiction. It was another film dealing with the wartime period, specifically in a Japanese context: “Peleliu–Guernica of Paradise”. Set on the island of the same name in 1944, Goro Kuji’s tale of camaraderie is at times startlingly brutal, its portrayal of violence being starker than one might expect considering the characters have the physical proportions—and, to a degree, the facial features—of Funko Pops and look much cuter than your typical war movie cannon fodder.
Blaise
Contrechamp’s big winner was another Cannes veteran, “Blaise,” a French dark comedy with an animation style reminiscent of the TV series “Archer”. Putting its own spin on the age-old trope of the dysfunctional family, it chronicles the everyday experiences of two parents and their teenage son as they come to terms with their oddball nature and actually try to fit in and make friends. Occasionally off-putting (in a very deliberate manner), but French cinema aficionados are in for a treat courtesy of Léa Drucker’s impeccable voice work as the mother.
On the short film side, longtime Annecy attendees were probably disappointed by the absence of Swedish director Niki Lindroth von Bahr, who won in 2017 with the exquisite “The Burden” and took Cannes by storm in May with “The End”. That said, stop-motion with a Nordic feel to it was still very much present in the form of “Please,” a melancholy tale about the need for human attachments. The puppets are human rather than anthropomorphic animals like in Lindroth von Bahr’s films, but there is an amusing behind-the-scenes connection: Alexander Skarsgård is one of the voice actors in “The End,” while his father Stellan lends his weary tones to “Please” with his usual charm and wit.
Dynamic Duo
Besides film screenings, a major component of Annecy’s yearly celebration of the animated form is a wide array of special presentations: studio showcases, work-in-progress sessions, masterclasses, and the like. And none, besides the Aardman event on opening day, were as highly anticipated as the Warner Bros. Pictures Animation panel, touted as a new chapter in the company’s history (much like DC Studios, the animation unit is now its own thing within the Warner Bros. family). Those who follow what’s going on in Hollywood were justifiably concerned about what the future may hold for the team, given the merger with Paramount that appears increasingly, depressingly unstoppable. And yet, what unspooled on the screen, illustrating a slate of films coming out through 2028, was sometimes mesmerizing, never anything less than interesting (“Dynamic Duo,” a puppet-based take on the DC universe, looks spectacular).
The presentation also allowed attendees to see a new Looney Tunes short, “Daffy Season,” which will premiere theatrically with “The Cat in the Hat” later this year. A gem of pure lunacy, with Daffy Duck losing it over the fact everyone is suddenly obsessed with soccer (or, as he calls it, European football), it marks the return of animated shorts meant for theaters, as far as Warner Bros. is concerned, after a protracted absence. In other words, that’s not all, folks!
- “Elle” Does Its Best to Smell Like Teen Spirit (July 1, 2026)
In 1995, six years before she was introduced to the world in the 2001 film “Legally Blonde,” Elle Woods was a high school student suddenly thrust out of her sunny Beverly Hills comfort zone into the overcast, extremely flannel world of Seattle. That is the backstory created in “Elle,” a new Prime Video series and prequel to “Legally Blonde” that imagines what life would have been like for teenage Elle if she’d had to navigate the grungy Pacific Northwest scene armed with an almost entirely pink wardrobe and a plucky attitude that shines a little too brightly for the shoegazer crowd.
Created by Laura Kittrell, whose previous writing and producing credits include “Insecure” and the wonderful, underrated “High School,” “Elle” begins with a clunky pilot and slowly becomes more watchable as it progresses through the eight episodes in its first season. It helps that the lead role once owned by Reese Witherspoon, also an executive producer, is occupied by newcomer Lexi Minetree, who looks a teeny bit old for high school (the actress is 25 in real life), but effectively channels the same bubbly, can-do spirit of Witherspoon’s Elle, along with her frustration with people who judge the cover of her book and immediately file her in the “vapid” section. But particularly in its early installments, the show “Elle” tends to place many of its characters into overly simplistic categories.
Literally every kid at Rainier West High School—which Elle attends after her plastic surgeon father (Thomas Everett Scott) performs a reputation-ruining botched nose job that forces her family to leave L.A.—dresses in either black, gray, or some monochromatic combination of the two. They’re all a bit cynical, mildly depressed and, sometimes, downright mean. “People are saying that you wearing that shirt is the second worst thing to ever happen to Nirvana,” Kimberly (Chandler Kinney), who immediately emerges as Elle’s nemesis, tells Elle when she shows up to school in a Nirvana shirt she bedazzled herself. “Seattle isn’t a costume and pink isn’t a personality,” Kimberly adds. The problem is that the show absolutely acts like Seattle, and the mid-’90s in general, is a costume, a hypocrisy that Elle lightly touches on herself. When Shannon, a fellow classmate and friend, tells Elle that the kids in Seattle are anti-conformity and “afraid to be like everybody else,” Elle responds, “Except when it comes to plaid.”
Tom Everett Scott, Lexi Minetree, June Diane Raphael
It’s best not to spend much time thinking about how the events in “Elle” may or may not disrupt the canon of the “Legally Blonde” franchise, which, for the record, includes three movies and a hit Broadway musical. (It’s okay if you don’t remember the 2009 straight-to-DVD release “Legally Blondes,” about Elle’s twin British cousins. Nobody else does either.) Kittrell and her fellow writers go out of their way to make allusions to the first movie, from the episode titles that repeat classic Elle Woods quotes—“Whoever Said Orange is the New Pink Was Seriously Disturbed” is the name of episode six; episode eight is called, “What, Like It’s Hard”—to the frequent references to Elle’s previously established favorite things (Cosmo and “Days of Our Lives.”)
But the series is just as evocative of other teen films and TV shows as it is of “Legally Blonde.” In fact, if someone turned on this series without knowing what it was, they might be convinced they were watching a streaming adaptation of “Clueless” since it’s set in 1995, the year the film was released; features similar music (“Just a Girl” by No Doubt makes an appearance, as do Radiohead and a cavalcade of other artists who had hits in the ‘90s); and focuses on a protagonist who’s determined to become a better, more serious person. As she did in “Legally Blonde,” Elle also uses a fuzzy feather pen. But we all know who did that first, and she has the same name as the lady who won an Oscar for “Moonstruck.”
Halfway through the season, a storyline involving the potential cover-up of a financial scandal at Rainier West High starts to give “Elle” a bit of a “Veronica Mars” vibe. There’s also an entire episode set during Saturday detention that overtly and frequently references “The Breakfast Club.” And in a choice that is now more poignant in retrospect, James Van Der Beek, whose career launched via “Dawson’s Creek,” plays a school superintendent running for mayor in what turned out to be his final performance. (He died earlier this year of colorectal cancer.)
Dean Wilson (James Van Der Beek) in ELLE. Photo Credit: Kimberley French/Prime Video
The more you can think of “Elle” as another teen show dealing with typical teen issues—including dating mishaps, the struggle to make and maintain friendships, and the attempt to define one’s sexual identity—the more likely you are to meet this series where it is and enjoy it on its own breezy terms. There are indeed some things to enjoy.
In addition to Minetree’s charming performance, Gabrielle Policano is a stand-out as Liz, an out-of-the-closet lesbian and straight shooter who becomes unlikely buddies with Elle. Her character could easily have come across as a stereotype, but Policano gives her a sense of humor and humanity that make her feel like a real teenager rather than one invented for a streaming release. Most of the laughs in “Elle” are generated by June Diane Raphael, who is extremely well-cast as Elle’s mother, a privileged busybody who, like her daughter, is not shy about stating her opinions. “These children are pale on purpose,” she tells Elle in an attempt to comfort her when her classmates are less than welcoming. “They don’t know anything.”
“Elle” won’t teach you anything important that you don’t already know about Elle Woods or, for that matter, what it’s like to be a teenage girl in the ‘90s or any other era. But it’s light, cheerful to look at, and unchallenging to binge in a weekend. Sometimes you need a dose of that after wallowing for too long under heavy clouds and too much flannel.
All eight episodes of season one were screened for review. Premieres July 1 on Prime Video.
- The Unloved, Part 151: Millennium Bugs (July 1, 2026)
Take this as a sequel to my piece that ran two days ago, “Retreating From The Elephant,” about the dismal state of the independent American cinema. Here we look at the hard-yet-uplifting sophomore feature “Millennium Bugs” by Alejandro Montoya Marín, his version of a 2000s feel-good comedy. The devil works hard, but Alejandro works harder. As long as I’ve known Alejandro, some ten years, he’s been working to get his next movie made, always the next movie. He cares about his past work, sometimes to the point of madness, and his persistence moved me. If only I had his determination, I might have been somebody. We all might.
Alejandro is a true independent, trying desperately and frequently succeeding, to keep the train rolling, to get eyes on his work, to provoke something in critics, journalists, festivals, and distributors. Alejandro could teach a class on guerrilla marketing and ignoring what an economist might tell him about the health of an investment. He’s detailed the frustrating meetings, the misery and loneliness of fundraising, and yet he remains undeterred. He was the one who suggested I start a crowdfunding campaign for my new film. Turns out he was right, and he gave me and my movie a stay of execution. I owe him a lot. I’m hoping this goes a little way toward repaying the favor.
His first film, “Monday,” was a little action comedy that sizzled with purpose. His latest, “The Unexpecteds,” is the all-too-relatable story of someone who got caught up in a get-rich-quick scheme, whose dreams were bigger than their means. It’s a movie bursting with inventiveness and heart, eager to become something greater than itself, a movie whose message is its means and medium. A film about trying to make a film, if only in a roundabout way.
But it’s this film that most fills me with joy among his too-small oeuvre. A story of fending off adulthood, no matter what your clock tells you. The best time to become your best self is yesterday, but tomorrow will do, if it must. A really fun scrappy picture, with real heart and a killer soundtrack, this is independent cinema.
- Female Filmmakers in Focus: Alice Winocour on “Couture” (July 1, 2026)
Angelina Jolie is back with one of her “most raw and vulnerable performances in years” in writer-director Alice Winocour’s incisive new drama “Couture.” Set during Paris Fashion Week, the film is both an emotive cancer drama and an insightful rumination on much of women’s invisible labor within the fashion industry.
Born in Paris, France, filmmaker Alice Winocour studied screenwriting at La Fémis before making three short films and co-writing the 2009 drama “Ordinary People” with director Vladimir Perišić. Winocour then made her directorial debut with the biopic “Augustine,” which premiered at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival as part of the Critics’ Week. Her sophomore film, the neo-noir thriller “Disorder” starring Matthias Schoenaerts and Diane Kruger, debuted at the Un Certain Regard section of the 2015 Cannes Film Festival.
That same year, “Mustang,” the Turkish drama she co-wrote with director Deniz Gamze Ergüven, was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards. Next came the Eva Green-starring astronaut drama “Proxima,” which premiered at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival. Virginie Efira won the César Award for Best Actress for her performance in Winocour’s drama “Revoir Paris,” which premiered as part of the Directors’ Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival in 2022.
Like her previous films, her new film “Couture” focuses on the complex interior lives of women as they navigate the modern world. An ensemble drama led by the always great Jolie, the film was inspired in part by Winocour’s own brush with breast cancer. Set during Paris Fashion Week, the film follows indie horror film director Maxine (Jolie), who is diagnosed with breast cancer just as she has arrived in Paris to direct a video for a big fashion show. The film weaves together Maxine’s story with that of makeup artist and would-be writer Angèle (Ella Rumpf), fresh-faced South Sudanese model Ada (Anyier Anei), and several other women working behind the scenes to make magic during Paris Fashion Week. In this glamorous world, Winocour explores how beauty and pain so often commingle, and how women’s bodies become both a battleground and their most sacred space.
For this month’s Female Filmmakers in Focus column, RogerEbert.com spoke to Winocour over Zoom about collaborating with Jolie on such a personal subject, the politics of presenting a film about collective labor, and crafting a film filled with the kind of women not often seen on screen.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Obviously, it’s a very personal story for both you and your star, Angelina Jolie. I would love to hear what that was like working together on a film that centers on an experience you both felt so deeply and personally in your real life.
It was something very emotional to work with someone who had lived through an operation on her flesh. Angelina has never had cancer because she did the preventive surgery, but she lost her mother and grandmother to the disease. So, there definitely was a special bond between the two of us, something you can’t explain with words. When you have lived something in your flesh, you know what you’re talking about.
We were very lucky; we were able to do something with our stitches, and that was the whole idea of the movie. Sharing the wounds and doing something with them. We did the film really with this kind of punk energy that Angelina also has. I love her rebellious mind and the way she behaves in life. We did it very quickly, with the sense of urgency that we had to celebrate life. And so it was a very profound and emotional experience.
Her performance is filled with so many beautiful interior moments. A lot of the film is her taking things in; there is so much emotion coming from her eyes. How do you work through a performance that’s so internal?
I think it’s very difficult. Sometimes you think actions seem more difficult, but I think the most difficult thing as an actor is showing your vulnerability or your soul. To be naked emotionally, and I mean, she’s also nude in the film, but she’s so naked emotionally, and it was a lot of trust, especially for such a big star as Angelina. There was a lot of sharing, and I’m really so grateful that she dedicated so much of herself to the movie. She’s speaking French; she’s doing so many things that were challenging to her.
Also, she’s not very comfortable with the idea of sex scenes anymore, but she did it because it was a special one; it was this idea of having sex, knowing you have cancer in your breasts, saying goodbye to your breasts before the operation, so this is the last time the character is doing this, having sex with her two breasts intact. So the film was very emotional, and she gave so much to the movie.
As you said, there’s so much of her coming on the screen. It was a lot to watch.
Sometimes she told me it’s too much. She didn’t have anything to hide behind. But I told her that’s what she’s going to show in the movie—the real Angelina behind Angelina Jolie, behind the icon, who really is.
You’ve discussed that this is, in one sense, a film about labor. It’s about these women, these professionals, working in this really difficult industry. Even though it looks very glamorous on the outside, it’s a difficult industry. Could you talk a bit about crafting these characters, each representing a facet of labor in the fashion industry?
It’s a labor thing, and it’s about workers. Because I don’t think that’s what people expected with Angelina Jolie in a fashion movie. These films are always stories about artistic directors or about those on the side of power, and mostly from a male perspective, because artistic directors are mostly men. I wanted to show the real life of workers, like the seamstresses in the atelier, makeup artists, the glam team, and all these models. There are the big superstar models, but then there are the ones nobody thinks about, like fit models. While doing research, I discovered that there are so many different worlds in the industry.
It was really touching because we worked with Chanel and showed the real workers and seamstresses. They were so happy to be looked at and to be filmed for the movie. We did the screening there. It was very emotional, too, because it was with all the women in the film. Afterwards they came up to me and said, “Oh, this is our life.”
Also, we had Yulia Ratner, the Ukrainian model, who really came from Zaporizhzhia, although she was in Kyiv when I met her. She had come through Poland, escaping war to go to fashion week, and then went back to the war zone. Anyier Anei, the South Sudanese girl, also came from a war zone as well. They met in this glamorous atmosphere. I didn’t know about any of this about fashion, that there were all of those people behind the scenes. So that’s what I wanted to show.
There’s a lot of geopolitics in this film, not just labor, but also geopolitics behind the glamor.
Fashion is entering the world all the time. We live with these images of fashion; they are everywhere around us, but the world is also entering the fashion world. I also thought right now it was political to make a movie that is about a collective, not just an individual story, but a story of many women, and this idea of sharing one’s skills and empathy. I mean, in a sense, all the characters are the same character, because they’re a self-portrait, they’re all fragments of me, a woman, and all the women I was, and that I’m not anymore. A woman in her 20s, in her 30s, in her 40s, somehow it’s the same woman, but at the same time it’s all parts of life that I really saw.
It’s also the parts of life within the fashion industry that I really saw. All the girls I’ve met have had such hard lives, and they’re from different generations. So in the film, we even see this woman in her 70s, the one Maxine meets in the hospital. What is also very funny is that almost all of the women in my film were models at one point in their lives. That woman, Aurore Clément, was a model. Ella Rumpf, who plays Angèle, was not a model, but Anyier is. So it’s really different stages of a woman’s body.
As a labor movie, obviously there are a lot of themes going on with the models – their bodies are their main asset, right? Then you have Angèle, the makeup artist, whose task is covering their scars. You have a couple of scenes where she is doing that, making their bodies look perfect, but you also see that their toes are bleeding. I’d love to hear your thoughts on how you show all this beauty, and then also the destruction and their bodies falling apart, and yet they’re propping each other up. I guess I’m interested in the combination of beauty and terror.
Yeah, it’s also about the suffering, like you see when Ada, Anyier’s character, is putting her feet on the ice because they’re aching so much. It’s a lot of pain, I think, yes, we see women suffering, but at the same time, life goes on. At first, I thought the film could have been named “Ride or Die,” you know, because it is filled with the spirit of survival and also about cancer. I think a lot of movies about cancer are very condescending. But when you are going through those experiences, I mean, life goes on. You don’t only have this question of cancer; you remain a woman with desires, with other problems, like money problems, like family problems, everything. It’s like the turmoil of life.
I thought it was interesting to represent illness as a love story, because you can fall in love with the heart, even in the midst of the harshness of disease or any hard time. I think life is complex. Beauty and death are always melded together, so I wanted to represent that in this movie.
I wanted to ask you about the male writing consultant with whom Angèle discusses her project. He says to her, “Just because something really happened doesn’t mean it’s interesting.” It’s such a horrible thing to say to someone, and so mean. All of these women are fighting to tell their stories or to challenge how they perceive them, and it felt so cutting and so real.
There’s a lot of meta in the film. Some critics would say exactly that. But it’s a real story that I wanted to see, with all of these women. The script was also inspired by comments I was given in my thirties, when I was beginning to write, from consultants like that or from people who tell you, “No, that’s not the way you should do it. You should do it another way.” In a Q&A, a guy told me it was funny that in the film most of the men who talk to women tell them what to do with their bodies, their lives, or their writing. It’s all men telling women what to do. I thought it was very true.
There are a lot of men in both those worlds.
It’s true, and so I really wanted to put the lights on the lives of women I thought I was not seeing in cinema. Also, Anyier, the South Sudanese model, I really wanted to put her on the map of cinema. There aren’t any South Sudanese stars, and yet models from there are everywhere. It’s really in fashion right now to feature girls from South Sudan. They are everywhere, in commercials and shows. So, I really wanted to know what their life was like, what their story was.
Are there any other women filmmakers whose work has inspired you or that you think readers should seek out?
There are so many, including male directors. I mean, of course, Agnès Varda was an inspiration. Kathryn Bigelow was an inspiration as well. I like directors who explode codes, who refuse assignations. Bigelow was a great inspiration for me for action movies and how to direct action. But I’m also very inspired by many male directors. I think it’s important to reaffirm that I don’t really know what it means to be a female director. Of course, being female is one aspect, but I do feel we should be more equal.
I wish that future generations will not have to answer these kinds of questions. Because you never ask men what male directors they like.
