For his 7th selection at the Cannes Film Festival, Jacques Audiard unveiled a project that was unexpected to say the least: a musical comedy mixed with crime fiction, shot in Spanish in Mexico. Trans actress Karla Sofía Gascón is the headliner.
30 years after his very first Cannes selection, French filmmaker Jacques Audiard returns to Cannes. In 1994, he presented his first feature film, Regarde les hommes chute, with Jean-Louis Trintignant, Jean Yanne and Mathieu Kassovitz, at Critics’ Week.
The director and screenwriter, winner of a Palme d’Or in 2015 with Dheepan, has subsequently returned to the Croisette numerous times, and is present today for the 6th time in official competition.
3 years after The Olympiads (interview above), here he is back with a project that is the opposite: a feature film combining a musical and a thriller, shot in Spanish, in Mexico, with an international cast! Selena Gomez, Zoe Saldana, Edgar Ramirez and the revelation Karla Sofía Gascón.
Emilia Perez is the title of this new film. The story ? That of a lawyer who will help an underworld figure to retire from business and realize his dearest desire: to become a woman.
During the press conference for the film, Jacques Audiard indicated that originally, the project had first been thought of as an opera, before becoming a film for the cinema. “It took a long time to become a film“, specifies the one who had the idea during confinement, reading a book which led to this Emilia Perez. It is a very free adaptation of the novel Listen by Boris Razon, published by Stock, in 2018.
Even if it means making a musical, even if it means singing and dancing, you might as well do it based on a tragedy
“Why in Mexico and why in Spanish?“, says Jacques Audiard, facing the audience at the Cannes press conference? “Something shocks me enormously in Mexico, it is all these problems of disappearances, of feminicides which are truly a terrible thing. All these regions where we can no longer safely go because they are dangerous. The fall of democracy is something that is unbearable for me. Even if it means making a musical, even if it means singing and dancing, you might as well do it based on a tragedy.”
Jacques Audiard, a career reviewed
This is a real feat for the filmmaker, who after a project in English (Les Frères Sister) switches to Spanish for this 10th feature film.
“When I read the script, I said to myself ‘but this guy is crazy! joke Karla Sofia Gascon. What is this story about a musical in Spanish, when he doesn’t speak Spanish himself! But how are we going to understand each other? He doesn’t speak Spanish, I don’t speak French. I do not speak English. How are we going to do this ?
Look, it’s exactly the same question that Joaquin Phoenix asked me when we made The Sister Brothers!
He said to me: listen, it’s exactly the same question that Joaquin Phoenix asked me when we made The Sister Brothers. And I said to him: what did you answer? By telepathy ! And that’s true! Between him and me, there is no need for words, we understand exactly what each expects from the other! That’s how it worked!“
The other feat of the film, we owe it to the actress Karla Sofia Gascón, who plays a dual role. “It was hard to convince him. At the beginning, Jacques only wanted me for the role of Emilia, he didn’t want me for Manitas. It was me who had to take months to convince him. One day, he called me: he said, ‘Okay, okay! Leave me alone’. We did a lot of testing for character development, transformation.”
And to add: “It was wonderful to discover Manitas. Finally, to see this character who is not two but only one. How the two will both separate and come together. It’s a magnificent gift that Jacques gives me. (…) It’s not a joke, it took an exorcist to get me out of character (…) For me, he’s truly the greatest filmmaker in the world. He lets us create. he lets us participate.
A message about transidentity
Spanish actress Karla Sofía Gascón, 52, changed gender at 46. On the occasion of this press conference, she wanted to send a message on transidentity.
“What does this role mean to me as a trans person?“, she rephrases. “Rather, we must ask ourselves what this means for all trans people. There is really a message to send here for all actors. (…) Today, at 52, I have arrived there.“
If I have a message to send, it’s that we trans people are like everyone else!
She continues: “SOn the networks, you type the word trans, all that comes up is pornography or insults. I have received death threats just for existing.
“This is an extremely important subject. If I have a message to send, it’s that we trans people are like everyone else! I’m neither smarter nor stupider because I’m trans. We can devote ourselves to the careers we want. We made a choice for our body that only concerns our body. We have the right to dispose of our bodies. As a trans woman, it’s a double whammy, this difficulty in having control over your body. What Jacques Audiard did was visibility.“
There’s no point labeling us
“We are not trans, we are human beings first. There’s no point putting labels on us. In humanity, we have always had to find a scapegoat, someone to carry everything that is wrong in the world. (…) We are normal people, it’s anecdotal to be trans. A trans person is a person who is going through a transition. Once she has passed through it, she is no longer in transition. She is what she is”.
Emilia Perez will be released in cinemas on August 28, 2024. Please note that previews of the film are planned for the coming days as part of a program of Cannes revivals.