“Anora” director Sean Baker talks about challenging the gangster genre, theatrical windows
For Sean Baker, it’s a play or a flop.
Paychecks from streamers can be confusing to him, but when it comes to his original work, it’s not just making works for film, but shooting for celluloid as well.
“We shouldn’t give up on the medium that created this art form,” Baker tells us in this episode of Crew Call about why he chose photography Anura On the movie.
“We shot it on film, we shot it in the cinema, and that’s how we want people to see it.”
“Theater means everything to me. I consider home entertainment secondary,” Baker tells us.
“NEON gave me a long theatrical window,” he adds. Anura It arrived on digital and PVOD after a 60-day period on December 17 following its theatrical release on October 18.
“With every film, I fight for a longer screening period, and I hope to get more than 90 days next time,” the director says of the demands he expects for his works from bidding distributors.
“We say to Glenn (Bassner) at Film Nation, FilmNation tells who picks our movie.”
“For me as a director, I am trying to fight for the future of the film,” Baker adds.
Since winning the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, Anura It’s been on a tear, racking up five Golden Globe nominations, and as recently as this week picked up DGA nominations for Baker and SAG nominations for Best Ensemble Act, Best Actress Mickie Madison and Best Supporting Actor Yura Borisov. At a production cost of $6 million, Anura With a worldwide gross of $32.4 million, it is Baker’s highest-grossing film of his career.
We spoke with Baker and his producers Samantha Kwan and Alex Cuoco about breaking down the original romantic comedy Russian Stripper and Son of an Oligarch, which Cannes Film Festival jury president Greta Gerwig likened to “Lubitsch and Howard Hawks structures,” the origins of the story. The intentional divisive ending and discovery Anura Herself, Mickey Madison.
Listen to our conversation below:
