Irish production company Element Pictures is firing on all cylinders, as company partners Ed Guiney and Andrew Lowe bring three very different pictures to Cannes.
The Yorgos Lanthimos producers are still smiling after a nail-biter Oscar night that yielded four wins for “Poor Things,” including Best Actress for Emma Stone. She also stars in all three episodes in Lanthimos’ follow-up, the $15-million black comedy “Kinds of Kindness” (June 21, Searchlight) along with returning co-stars Willem Dafoe and Margaret Qualley and Lanthimos newbie Jesse Plemons, who leads the first two episodes. He gets to show what he can do throughout; Stone delivers an emotional performance in the ultimate story.
Each of the stories features the same actors, but with different emphasis. Lanthimos had his eye on Plemons for a while, said Lowe on Zoom, and finally found a film for him: “When the right thing comes along, Yorgos pounces. He’s specific about casting. He tends not to run long lists of names. He’s decisive and absolutely loved what Jesse has done over the years, and was delighted to work with him.”
“Kinds of Kindness” marks a return to the offbeat, strange worlds of writer Efthimis Filippou’s “Dogtooth,” “The Lobster,” and “The Killing of a Sacred Deer,” where people following alternate behavior rules and sexual and moral codes do unexpected things that subvert our notion of reality. The three stories boast related themes about the danger of cult leaders and their mindlessly obedient followers.
Lanthimos and Filippou spent five years developing “Kinds of Kindness.” “It started off as a single film,” said Guiney, “and then evolved into three separate stories. It’s more in that universe than in the Tony McNamara [of ‘The Favourite’ and ‘Poor Things’] universe. And then further the idea of the same cast playing different characters in three separate films about belief and belonging and faith. The film goes from high comedy to tragedy in a nanosecond. [Yorgos] is very good at that. He keeps you on your toes as a viewer.”
The production filmed in an anonymous-looking New Orleans, much as “The Killing of a Sacred Deer” filmed in Cincinnati. It could be any Southern city. “He wanted to shoot summer in the southern United States,” said Lowe. “But beyond that, we don’t particularly identify that it’s New Orleans. It’s not obvious, necessarily where it is.”
The film is showing at Cannes rather than Venice mainly due to scheduling. “The film was finished,” said Lowe, “and ready. And we are about to go into production on another film of his which will shoot right through the summer. So it was a practical strategy, launching in Cannes, and then getting it out into theaters. So we’re having to follow up launches in London and New York in June and then he can move on and focus on the next one and not worry about having to do lots of promotion.”
The new Lanthimos movie is an untitled remake of South Korean film “Save the Green Planet,” which was developed by CJ Entertainment with screenwriter Will Tracy from Joon-Hwan Jang’s original script about a man who kidnaps a businessman he thinks is an alien. Emma Stone has been announced to star. “There are some familiar faces,” said Lowe; Element is still working out distribution details.
Also at Cannes, Element is premiering English-language “September Says,” adapted from the David Johnson novel “Sisters” by Greek-born French actress-turned-director Ariane Labed, who appeared in Lanthimos’ “Alps.” “She’s a filmmaker we’ve known for a long time,” said Lowe. “She had a great short in Cannes a couple of years ago called ‘Olli.’ We developed this for her.”
Element is optimistic that “September Says” will find a buyer. “It is that tantalizing prospect of launching a brand new film into the most opinionated receptive audience in the world,” said Guiney. “It is a bit nerve-wracking because it can be tough. ‘September Says’ is that incredible opportunity to launch your film as a filmmaker. Ariane has been around a long time and is well-known in France.”
Cannes is “the best way of launching a film, arguably,” said Lowe. “For each film it’s quite different. We’ve got three films in Cannes that are three quite different ways of getting made. ‘Kinds of Kindness’ is filmed for Searchlight. So that’s a studio model. ‘Kinds of Kindness’ benefits from the fact that it’s in Competition, Yorgos is well-established. So it comes with a certain amount of expectation.”
“Cannes is a festival where things can really pop,” said Guiney, “with films like ‘After Sun’ or ‘Anatomy of a Fall’ last year. In some of the other festivals, it’s often hard to get attention for the smaller movies.”
Their third film, “On Becoming a Guinea Fowl” (A24), is the second feature film from Rungano Nyoni, whom they met when she broke out at Cannes with “I Am Not a Witch.” (She was on the Cannes jury last year.) It’s an intense battle of the older matriarchs and younger women in a Zambian village.
This movie was equity-financed. Fremantle, Element’s parent company, co-financed with BBC Film, and Match Factory is selling foreign territories. “It’s quite surreal,” said Guiney, “told with a lot of humor.”
Lowe and Guiney are feeling positive about the film industry. “We’re a little more optimistic now than we would have been two years ago,” said Lowe. “But going to Cannes and trying to raise finance for future projects, it does feel like things are loosening up a bit on film, and particularly because during the headlong rush to streamers owning everything and financing, everything receded for film. So it’s becoming apparent streamers are actually a little more flexible, and maybe will license rather than own outright,. And people who are end users for film, film distributors, and podcasters, are still committed to film.”
