“Biutiful,” the haunting tale of a cancer-stricken father and one of this year’s five foreign language Academy Award nominees, would never have been made today, the film’s director, Alejandro Gonzalez-Inarritu, said Saturday during a panel at the Academy’s headquarters.
He said he doesn’t think he would be able to find funding.
“I started shooting literally one month before the economic collapse in 2008,” Gonzalez-Inarritu said. “This film would never be financed again. The fact that he’s dying? It would just be impossible to make a film like that again. I was really privileged with the resources that I had. The budget I had was like $20 million, so it was expensive for a film like this.”
That figure seems meager when compared to such Oscar contenders as “Inception” and “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1,” whose budgets were in the $200 million range. But Gonzalez-Inarritu said finding distribution for the Mexican film, which stars best-actor nominee Javier Bardem, was difficult in the United States because of the film’s dark tone.
The other nominated foreign-language filmmakers were envious of the “Biutiful” budget. Yorgos Lanthimos, the Greek director of the overprotective family drama “Dogtooth,” said the debt crisis in his country, which funds the production of approved Greek films, made it tougher to shoot his next film. He said “Dogtooth” originally cost about $250,000 to make.
“It’s really difficult to raise the money,” said Lanthimos. “I did my next film with even less than that. I don’t know how much it will cost me in the end. It’s really difficult when the Greek Film Center doesn’t have money. We know the situation with Greece. My next film was approved to be funded by the Greek Film Center, but they don’t have any money.”
Rachid Bouchareb, the Algerian director of “Outside the Law,” said he didn’t have to battle a budget to make his film about three Algerian siblings in France during Algeria’s struggle for independence, but he did have to fend off controversy in France where “Outside the Law” was intensely criticized for its depiction of Algeria’s fight for liberation.
Susanne Bier, the Danish director of “In a Better World,” insisted that any financial limitations spurred creativity while making her film about a pair of separated parents and their bullied son.
Denis Villeneuve, the Canadian director of the Middle East drama “Incendies,” said he only filmed scenes that would end up in the film in order not to waste money.
“What you see on the screen,” said Villeneuve, “is what we shot.”
Oscar Nominees Delve Into The Art Of Editing At ACE Session
You couldn’t miss Sean Baker at this past Sunday’s Oscar ceremony where he won for Best Picture, Directing, Original Screenplay and Editing on the strength of Anora. However, earlier that weekend he was in transit from the Cesar Awards in Paris and thus couldn’t attend the American Cinema Editors (ACE) 25th annual panel of Academy Award-nominated film editors held at the Regal LA Live Auditorium on Saturday (3/1) in Los Angeles. While the eventual Oscar winner in the editing category was missed by those who turned out for the ACE “Invisible Art, Visible Artists” session, three of Baker’s fellow nominees were on hand--Dávid Jancsó, HSE for The Brutalist; Nick Emerson for Conclave; and Myron Kerstein, ACE for Wicked. Additionally, Juliette Welfling, who couldn’t appear in person due to the Cesar Awards, was present via an earlier recorded video interview to discuss her work on Emilia Pérez. The interview was conducted by ACE president and editor Sabrina Plisco, ACE who also moderated the live panel discussion. Kerstein said that he was the beneficiary of brilliant and generous collaborators, citing, among others, director Jon M. Chu, cinematographer Alice Brooks, and visual effects supervisor Pablo Helman. The editor added it always helps to have stellar acting performances, noting that hearing Cynthia Erivo, for example, sing live was a revelation. Kerstein recalled meeting Chu some eight years ago on a “blind Skype date” and it was an instant “bromance”--which began on Crazy Rich Asians, and then continued on such projects as the streaming series Home Before Dark and the feature In The Heights. Kerstein observed that Chu is expert in providing collaborators with... Read More