Golshifteh Farahani is an Iranian-born actor based in France. He was nominated to a Cesar award. “The Patience Stone,” played in Ridley Scott’s “Body of Lies,”Now, she stars in the Apple TV Plus drama “Invasion,” will feature alongside Marion Cotillard and Melvil Poupaud in the cast of Arnaud Desplechin’s “Brother and Sister,”Desplechin says Variety.
He is a regular at Cannes where 11 of his 12 films have been premiered. He could return to Cannes again this year, with the filmmaker confirming that his new film will be available for viewing in May.
Produced and sold by Wild Bunch “Brother and Sister”It will follow the story of two siblings, Poupaud (Cotillard) and Farahani (Farahani). They are forced to reunite after 20 years of silence, following the deaths their parents. Farahani will play Poupaud’s spouse.
He describes his latest effort as a companion piece to his 2004 film. “Kings and Queen,”This novelist tone was striking as it told two parallel stories that eventually intertwined via two completely different registers. “On one side, you had one character living a melodrama, and the other in a slapstick, burlesque comedy,”Desplechin.
“[This latest film] is a bit like its twin,”He continues. “One thread follows a brother (Poupaud), who no longer sees his sister, and one follows the sister (Cotillard), who no longer sees her brother. The film’s goal is to reunite them.”
The filmmaker, who shot the project in Roubaix, his native Roubaix, late last year and is currently in the edit suite reflecting on the project with no distance. “It was an emotionally walloping shoot, because the tones the actors struck went far beyond anything I could have ever expected,”He said. “I had no idea they would offer so much, and was overwhelmed by the intensity of their performances.”
The filmmaker admits that he has a greater set of immediate concerns. “Right now I’m deep in editing, which puts me into a very depressive state,”He continues. “I only started editing 10 days ago, and I already feel like a dead man. It’s like something George Lucas once said to Steven Spielberg: ‘Any director who doesn’t puke after the screening their first edit has a serious problem.’ So I’m living that moment right now.”
Desplechin will board a plane to Senegal when he emerges, where he plans on finishing the production with an unshot epilogue. He will have to work out how that might look. “I still have to dream up the epilogue,”He said. “In a way it’s a good thing we didn’t do it before, because now I can look at the images that were shot and figure out what the film itself calls for and what it requires.”
But of all the concerns pressing on the filmmaker’s mind at the moment, this looming cap to productions seems to present little concern. “We’ll only shoot for a day,”Desplechin. “I did the same thing on ‘My Golden Days’ when shooting in Tajikistan. It was totally absurd, and the producer wanted to kill me. He asked, ‘Where will you shoot the Tajikistan sequence?’ And I replied ‘Tajikistan itself, where else?’”
He continues: “So I sent two friends a few days ahead of time. I arrived the night before and we improvised everything on the spot over the course of a day and half. And it worked out great!”