Anora by Sean Baker made the Cannes Film Festival burst into laughter by recounting the delirious adventure of a pole dancer who lives a brief love affair with the son of an oligarch, Olympic slacker and all-round fiesta champion and exploration of artificial paradises.
“I wanted to highlight a dignified and strong sex worker,” explains the director of Tangerine, The Florida Project And Red Rocket because I find that these people are too often stigmatized. » Anora, played by the extraordinary Mikey Adison, must deal with her lover’s family: three big broken arms not as involuntarily funny as they are disturbingly funny.
Directing the sex scenes
The unbridled antics between the two young people raised the temperature in the Cannes room. Mikey Madison and his partner Mark Eidelstein did not want an intimacy coordinator on set. “Sean Baker and his wife and producer Samantha Quan mimed all the sequences together before we performed them. It was a lot of fun,” remembers Mikey Madison.
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The two lovers multiply positions in a very amusing joyful delirium including a very delightful backward somersault performed by the gentleman. “My main concern was making them feel comfortable,” says Sean Baker. If they had wanted a coordinator, we would have hired one, but they did not want that. » The duo agrees enthusiastically. “Mikey warned me that I could touch her and everything went perfectly. We had a lot of fun because there was no awkwardness. »
Sex and violence
Sean Baker, on the other hand, sought advice from a stunt specialist for a scene where the heroine is overpowered by a bodyguard played by Yuriy Borisov. “We were really fighting,” says Mikey Madison. It was funny because Boris is stronger than me and I took his head off. »
The artisanal and good-natured atmosphere of the shoot seems to have continued on the Croisette where everyone seemed very complicit. Will Greta Gerwig and her jury be moved by Anora, a courageous woman trying to survive in a sexist world in which she evolves with grace? The public, for its part, gave the film a triumph.