After multiple delays due to COVID-19 and major production upheavals, including moving the shoot from Nicaragua to Panama, Claire Denis and the cast of Stars at Noon, Margaret Qualley and Joe Alwyn, took the stage at the Cannes Film Festival to present the competition title, an adaptation of the Denis Johnson novel.
Unlike Johnson’s novel, which is set in Nicaragua in 1984 and follows an American woman who gets caught up in the Sandinista civil war, Denis made Stars at Noon as a contemporary romantic thriller. She explained that when the production was forced to move from Nicaragua to Panama “for security reasons and sanitary reasons when COVID started” she found it – “ridiculous to try and recreate the Sandinista civil war in Panama.”
Denis said she first spotted Qualley in Cannes in 2019, in the Quentin Tarantino film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, but it took several years to finally get Stars at Noon made.
“We had to wait so long to make this film, and Margaret waited,” said Denis. “And because [Margaret] waited, I thought I had to do it with her. I couldn’t let her wait for nothing.”
Qualley called Denis “an absolute legend, the best of the best” and said her approach to directing allowed her to be incredibly free on set. “Because she is looking at you with so much love, you feel free to do anything,” Qualley said.
Shooting in Panama felt like returning home, Qualley said, noting that her father had moved to the country many years before and she has been visiting the South American nation “on and off for 14 years [so I’ve] accidentally been prepping for 14 years.”
Stars at Noon is only the second time Denis has appeared in competition in Cannes, after her debut feature, Chocolat premiered here in 1988. Speaking on the historical lack of female representation in the festival’s official selection, Denis noted that while “it is much better now,” it remains a challenge for women directors to get their work made and recognized.
“Still, it is really hard for men and women to (make) movies,” the director said. But “it is harder for women. But women are tough, and it is important to be tough when you are making films.”
Source: Hollywood
