Anora | |
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Directed by | Sean Baker |
Written by | Sean Baker |
Produced by |
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Starring |
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Cinematography | Drew Daniels |
Edited by | Sean Baker |
Music by | Matthew Hearon-Smith |
Production companies |
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Distributed by | Neon |
Release dates |
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Running time | 139 minutes [1] |
Country | United States |
Languages |
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Anora is a 2024 American comedy-drama film written, directed and edited by Sean Baker. It stars Mikey Madison in the title role of an exotic dancer and follows her beleaguered romance with the son of a Russian oligarch. It also stars Mark Eydelshteyn, Yura Borisov, Karren Karagulian, Vache Tovmasyan, and Aleksei Serebryakov.
The film premiered on May 21, 2024, in competition at the 77th Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Palme d'Or, the first American film to do so since The Tree of Life in 2011. It is scheduled to be released on October 18, 2024, by Neon.
Ani is a young Uzbek-American [3] [4] [5] [6] stripper from Brighton Beach, a Russophone enclave in New York City. As she is somewhat conversant in Russian, her boss fixes her up with Russian-speaking clients. After meeting Vanya, the son of a Russian oligarch, a romance kindles that, in addition to his desire to avoid deportation, leads to their elopement. Their fairytale marriage is threatened when Vanya's parents travel to New York intending to force an annulment.
Principal photography took place at the beginning of 2023 in Brooklyn, New York. [8]
For Anora, Baker has stated that his intentions were towards "telling human stories, by telling stories that are hopefully universal [...] It's helping remove the stigma that's been applied to [sex work], that's always been applied to this livelihood." [9]
At a press conference in Cannes, Mikey Madison stated that Baker and producer Samantha Quan, who is Baker's wife, would act out different sex positions to demonstrate what they wanted the actors to do. Madison was offered an intimacy coordinator but said, "As I'd already created a really comfortable relationship with both of them for about a year, I felt that that would be where I was most comfortable with and it ended up working so perfectly." [9]
Worldwide distribution rights were acquired by FilmNation Entertainment in October 2023. The film was then sold by FilmNation to Le Pacte for France, Lev for Israel, Kismet for Australia and New Zealand, and Focus Features/Universal Pictures International for the rest of the world excluding North America in deals similar to those made on Baker's previous film, Red Rocket . [8] In November 2023, Neon acquired North American distribution rights to the film, [10] and is scheduled to open it in a limited release on October 18, 2024. [11] [12]
Anora premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on May 21, 2024, [13] [14] and won the festival's Palme d'Or on May 25. [15] It earned a 10-minute standing ovation at the end of its screening. [16] It became the fifth consecutive Palme d'Or winner distributed by Neon in the United States; previous winners include Parasite , which would go on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, Titane , Triangle of Sadness , nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, and Anatomy of a Fall , also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. [17] It is also the first American film to win the Palme d'Or since 2011's The Tree of Life . [18]
The film will also play at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 7, 2024, [19] and at the New York Film Festival as part of the Main Slate. [20]
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes , 96% of 48 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8.7/10.The website's consensus reads: "Another marvelous chronicle of America's scuzzy strivers by writer-director Sean Baker given some extra pizzazz by Mikey Madison's brassy performance, Anora is a romantic drama on the bleeding edge." [21] Metacritic , which uses a weighted average , assigned the film a score of 89 out of 100, based on 21 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". [22]
Greta Gerwig, serving as the president of the 77th Cannes Film Festival Jury, commented that "[Anora] was something we collectively felt we were transported by, we were moved by [...] It felt both new and in conversation with older forms of cinema. There was something about it that reminded us of [the] classic structures of [Ernst] Lubitsch or Howard Hawks, and then it did something completely truthful and unexpected." [23]
Richard Lawson of Vanity Fair wrote, "[Anora is] a wild, profane blast [...] Even when Baker's storytelling and dialogue gets repetitive, Madison keeps things lively [...] I found myself torn between finding Baker's conclusions compassionate and sensing a vague whiff of something patronizing. [...] Baker's explorations of outsiders tend to tread between graciousness and gawking, benevolent anthropology and the more malevolent, missionary kind." [24]
Award | Date of ceremony | Category | Recipient(s) | Result | Ref. |
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Cannes Film Festival | May 25, 2024 | Palme d'Or | Sean Baker | Won | [25] |
The Palme d'Or is the highest prize awarded to the director of the Best Feature Film of the Official Competition at the Cannes Film Festival. It was introduced in 1955 by the festival's organizing committee. Previously, from 1939 to 1954, the festival's highest prize was the Grand Prix du Festival International du Film. In 1964, the Palme d'Or was replaced again by the Grand Prix, before being reintroduced in 1975.
Sean Baker is an American filmmaker. He is best known for directing independent feature films about the lives of sex workers, including Take Out (2004), Starlet (2012), Tangerine (2015), The Florida Project (2017), Red Rocket (2021), and Anora (2024), the last of which won him the Palme d'Or at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival. He is also known for creating the Fox/IFC puppet sitcom Greg the Bunny (2002–2006) and its spin-offs.
The Best Director Award is an award presented annually at the Cannes Film Festival since 1946. It is given for the best achievement in directing and is chosen by the International Jury from the films in the Competition slate at the festival.
The Short Film Palme d'Or is the highest prize given to a short film at the Cannes Film Festival. Since the creation of the Cinéfondation section in 1998, a common Official Jury awards the Short Film Palme d'Or as well as the prizes for the three best films of the Cinéfondation.
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Mikey Madison is an American actress. She started her career playing the sullen teenager Max Fox in the FX comedy series Better Things from 2016 to 2022. She has since played Manson Family follower Susan "Sadie" Atkins in Quentin Tarantino's film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019), Amber Freeman in Scream (2022) and the title role of a stripper in Sean Baker's Anora (2024).
Vachagan Tovmasyan, known professionally as Vache Tovmasyan, is an Armenian actor, comedian, and showman. In 2005, Vache joined several other comedians—largely unknown to the public—to form 32 Teeth comedy show. In 2010, Vache and his friends created the Vitamin Club stand-up comedy TV show, which was broadcast by Shant TV every week until 2015.
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Red Rocket is a 2021 American black comedy drama film directed by Sean Baker, who co-wrote it with Chris Bergoch. It stars Simon Rex, Bree Elrod, and Suzanna Son. The film stars Rex as a middle-aged, newly retired porn star who leaves Los Angeles for his small Texas hometown, plotting his way back to the life he once had. Along the way, he begins dating a seventeen-year-old girl.
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The 77th annual Cannes Film Festival took place from 14 to 25 May 2024. American filmmaker and actress Greta Gerwig served as jury president for the main competition. French actress Camille Cottin hosted the opening and closing ceremonies. American filmmaker Sean Baker won the Palme d'Or, the festival's top prize, for the comedy-drama film Anora.
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