By Jake Coyle, Film Writer
CANNES, France (AP) --Joanna Hogg is sitting on a hotel balcony overlooking the Mediterranean, but what she'd really like to be doing is swimming in it.
The night before, Hogg premiered her film "The Souvenir Part II" at the Cannes Film Festival. Sequels may be a regular part of summer, but they rarely make it to Cannes. Yet "The Souvenir" is no usual two-parter.
Together, the movies are a sublime, singular work of semi-autobiography — a coming-of-age self-portrait reflected through time and cinema. They're based on a period in Hogg's life in the late '80s when she was in film school in London.
In part one, a romance with an older man who has a hidden drug addiction ends tragically. In part two, Julie devotes herself to making her final student film about that experience while processing her grief. In both, Honor Swinton Byrne plays a slightly fictionalized version of Hogg when she was younger; Byrne's real-life mother, Tilda Swinton, plays her mom.
The movies were written together as one piece, spread across two films. And there's very little like them.
"I don't even feel sure I have completed it," Hogg says, a little surprised to feel that way. "It's funny, because I have completed it. I'm not making another part. I don't know that it's really dawned on me that it's finished."
"The Souvenir Part II" has been one of the clear standouts at the Cannes Film Festival. It played in the Directors' Fortnight, which runs parallel to the Cannes official selection. It's a hushed, formally composed film that played down the Croisette from Cannes' central Palais.
Still, few movies here have spawned as much fawning over. Hogg's project has already attracted a wide array of admirers (Martin Scorsese is an executive producer of both films). But "The Souvenir Part II," which a24 will release, only enhances Hogg's achievement.
"I've rediscovered a way of making films that I enjoyed when I was at film school before I got sucked into television," says the 61-year-old Hogg, who didn't make her feature directorial debut until 2007's "Unrelated." "It was the making of the film within the film within the film — I don't know how many inside boxes there are."
The hall-of-mirrors nature of "The Souvenir" only gets weirder. Tilda Swinton, an old friend of the director's, starred in Hogg's original 1986 short film, titled "Caprice." In "The Souvenir Part II," Byrne wears some of her mother's clothes from that time. After the first Cannes screening of the film, Swinton said emphatically, "It was a trip."
Hogg acknowledges that even for her the lines between memory and fiction have blurred. Toward the end of "Part II," Julie is interviewed about her student film — a scene that Hogg feels being replayed for herself.
"I almost feel like I'm inside a film as I'm talking to you," Hogg says, laughing. "We have Julia being interviewed, and she's saying exact words that I said in an interview in the late '80s. It's too weird. Maybe I'm dreaming. Maybe this is a film."
But if there's so much still unclear for Hogg about her experience completing "The Souvenir," what's absolutely uncomplicated is that, 35 years later, she's fully realized herself as a filmmaker.
"I feel more emboldened," says Hogg. "I seem on the surface to be quite reserved and a bit shy — that's how I feel, anyway. But when it comes to making my work, I'm like a dog with a bone. It's my lifeblood."
SCHROM x Yacht Club and Be Electric Studios Launch Electric XR for Virtual Production
SCHROM x Yacht Club, a full-service live-action, tabletop, and postproduction company, has teamed with Be Electric Studios, a soundstage, equipment rental, and virtual production company, to launch Electric XR, a virtual production collective.
Industry veteran Thomas Rossano will lead the new venture, which provides advanced virtual production solutions across multiple facilities. He brings over 25 years of experience in live-action, tabletop, postproduction and talent curation to enhance Electric XRโs offerings as a resource for brands and agencies, as well as other production companies in need of virtual production solutions. Additionally Rossano continues to serve as EP at XR New York (XR-NY), a role heโs held since December 2022. SCHROM x Yacht Club originally established XR-NY to help provide XR services for third-party rentals. While XR-NY will continue to function independently for SCHROM X Yacht Club, it now operates under the Electric XR umbrella.
Rossanoโs expertise spans producing live-action commercials, branded content, interactive and experiential content. In addition to leading Electric XR, he holds responsibilities at SCHROM x Yacht Club which include driving business development, collaborating with sales reps and expanding the companyโs creative talent network. Rossanoโs career includes serving as an exec producer at Hungry Man for about 11 years, right from that companyโs inception. He then went on to become a partner at Station Film where he also had a lengthy tenure. Later he was a partner at PRISM. Then after the pandemic hit, he became a freelance EP for nearly two years, looking into opportunities in virtual production, which led him to XR NY and now Electric XR. Over the years, he has produced high-profile... Read More