The 2024 Palme d’Or is called Anora: Release, Casting, Story… Everything You Need to Know About Sean Baker’s Modern Pretty Woman

And the 2024 Palme d’Or goes to… Anora. For taste and love of good films, Greta Gerwig and her jury chose to award the highest prize to Sean Baker’s new feature film, which today is becoming more than a leader of the independent branch of American cinema.

It takes over from Justin Triet and his Anatomy of the Fall to become the first American winner since Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life. Here’s what you need to know about this feature film that won over the jury at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival for its humor, the emotions it gives us, and the way it breaks our hearts as well as gives us hope.

Release date: When is Anora coming out?

The feature film does not have a release date yet. But it has a French distributor, Le Pacte, which already had… Anatomy of the Fall. No doubt the slot will be selected and announced quickly. Will Sean Baker be given another detour in the fall at the Deauville festival he knows so well?

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Sexmushka’s journey between New York and Las Vegas. and her relationship with the son of a Russian oligarch.

Director: But who is Sean Baker?

Sean Baker is 53 years old (which he doesn’t look like at all), the author of six feature films. Of these, only three were released in our cinemas (waiting for Anora): Mandarin, a ball of energy shot on iPhone and which began to attract the attention of French moviegoers; The Florida project, which made its first appearance at the Quinzaine des Cinéastes in Cannes; and Red Rocket, with which he debuted in 2021.

If Willem Dafoe was in The Florida Project, Sean Baker thrives in American independent cinema, where he develops two of his favorite themes: sex workers and being left behind in the Atlantic Ocean. “My films start from problems, topics, places that I want to cover”He told us, already in Cannes, in 2021. “And I’m also working in response to what I don’t see enough of in film and television in the United States.”

I’m working in response to something I don’t see enough of in film and television in the United States.

After each film, Sean Baker portrays a transsexual prostitute (Tangerine), a porn actress (Red Rocket) or a stripper (Anora) in a new position for the camera.

Without judging its characters, very well written, it works with notions of sexuality and the male gaze (or “man’s gauze”) and by building bridges between his various opuses that take place in the same world. So let’s be careful when you see anora, because hitting the red missile is more or less hidden in plain sight.

A fan of Francis Ford Coppola and David Cronenberg, who opposed him at the Cannes competition in 2024, Sean Baker became the last owner of the Palme d’Or branch. Introducing George Lucas, a director who has managed to remain independent throughout his career. Like a symbol?

Casting: Who plays Anora?

One day we’ll have to see the casting for the movie Once Upon A Time in Hollywood. Where we notably met Austin Butler, Margaret Cowell (Kinds of Kindness and The Substance competing this year), Sidney Sweeney, Maya Hawke and Mikey Madison.

Sean Baker also spotted the actress with black hair before offering her the lead role of Anora just days after the fifth Scream was released. “It’s the first time I haven’t had to audition.”A major stakeholder tells us, 24 hours after the official screening in Cannes, during which he set fire to the Croisette.

“I’m worried because I won’t be able to shoot with it anymore because it will be too expensive now that Anora is going to fly it”Sean Baker then tells us about one of the major announcements of this Cannes Film Festival.

Opposite him, the public discovered the Russian actor Marc Eidelstein, a kind of cross between Vincent Lacoste and Timothée Chalamet, whose clumsy energy caused many bursts of laughter in the first part of the film.

Finally, if he left Cannes empty-handed in 2021, Sean Baker found there one of the actors of his next film: Yuri Borisov, also Russian, who three years ago was on the poster of Coupe N°6, Grand Prix il. And that he decided to hire.

Why is this wonderful golden palm branch?

Honestly, and despite her huge love rating, many viewers who discovered her at Cannes (her lines included) had no idea she would be so high on the list, where it would be scandalous not to see her at all.

But we have to face the facts: this was one of the rare films that managed to agree with everyone, within a choice that was considered disappointing when it came to promises. From the first seconds, Anora pulls out one of its main cards, namely its euphoric side, which will remain for more than two hours, even when the story becomes more dramatic.

The story (and appearance) of this stripper caused many bursts of laughter “Everything He Said” tATu’s soundtrack) then warmed up the room just a little bit, just waiting for the end credits to offer him a well-deserved triumph. He and his lead actor, who do more than blow up the screen: turn it into confetti and set it on fire.

In every scene, and especially in this crazy central sequence, about which we will say as little as possible, the actor is fearless. And she carries on her shoulders this Pretty Woman 2.0, which quickly breaks free from the model to fully fit into the cinema of its author, who also likes to seize the codes of fairy tales to deconstruct the American dream.

Funny, energetic (sometimes too much), melancholic Anora makes the audience feel different emotions, but manages to unite thanks to its consistency and strong heartbeat. And it’s great to see that Greta Gerwig and her jury were seduced by such a strong female character.