Sean Baker urges moviegoers to see his Palme d’Or-winning film Anora Screening on the big screen at the BFI London Film Festival on Friday.
Speaking shortly before the film’s UK premiere at London’s Royal Festival Hall, where the director spoke alongside his namesake star Mickey Madison, Baker said it was important for people to see that “adult films” could be made “without superheroes and explosions” “.
The two chatted briefly with festival director Kristy Matheson about how they came together and why Coney Island was ripe soil for Baker’s twisted Cinderella story.
Neon, a screwball comedy starring Madison (scream, once upon a time in hollywood) plays the titular character, a sex worker in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, who hangs out with the son of a Russian oligarch played by Mark Edelstein.
Anora The film premiered in competition at the Cannes Film Festival and subsequently screened in Telluride, Toronto and San Sebastian.
Following a screening of the film at London’s Ham Court Hotel on Thursday, Baker and Maddison shared what went into filming the sex scenes. When asked if the show uses intimacy coordinators, Baker said: “No, we don’t. I think it’s very important for actors to have that option. Of course, we offer both Mikey and Mark [Eidelstein]…that option. But I’ve also directed sexual themes throughout my career, so I feel very comfortable with that, and as a producer on a film, the first priority is the safety and comfort of the actors.
“So by the time we started shooting, I think we were so comfortable that we were shooting in an incredibly clinical way,” he added. “There was no improvisation. We like to call them sex shots, not sex scenes, because they’re blocked, they’re calculated.
Madison added: “We discussed every scene in detail and what it would look like. And Sean and his wife and producing partner Sammy [Samantha Quan] It may even obscure its appearance [on screen]”.
Filmmakers including Baker’s wife Samantha Quan were interviewed hollywood reporter Late September discusses how movies get sex work right.
Anora Neon will be released in the US on October 18th and in the UK on November 1st
