Leonora Carrington film gets UK premiere at Chichester film festival

SussexWorld

Leonora in the Morning Light gets its UK premiere at this year’s Chichester International Film Festival with directors Thor Klein and Lena Vurma there on August 17 and 18 to share their thoughts on the film.

Transcript

00:00Good afternoon, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group R editor at Sussex Newspapers. Lovely to speak

00:06to Lena and Thor this afternoon about the film which you are bringing to the Chichester International

00:12Film Festival. It's got a fantastic sounding title, really appealing, intriguing title,

00:18Leonora in the Morning Light. It's going to be at the Chichester International Film Festival on

00:23August the 17th and the 18th, and you both will be there. So Thor, tell me first, why Leonora

00:29Carrington? What's the fascination with her? Why is she someone that we should be thinking about now?

00:35I think because she touches upon something in her paintings that we all long for. It's a search for

00:43everything beyond the material world. You can call it spiritual or metaphysical. And her paintings

00:52somehow have this particular energy about them. And this is why a lot of people all around the

00:59world in the last years rediscovered her. Mexico, she's quite an icon. She's right up there next to

01:06Frida Kahlo, which also was quite surprising for us. But we had lost her a bit, hadn't we?

01:13Yes, absolutely. She was, I would say, overlooked for a long time. I mean, she went to Mexico after the Second

01:25World War, or in the midst of the Second World War, I shall say. And she formed her own, back then the world

01:36was not as connected. So for a long time, she was painting there. And people in Mexico got to know

01:41her. And she became known, but not in Europe. So that's the aspect that she is such a fascinating

01:50character.

01:50And you are looking at Europe, particularly, well, Lena, you tell me to invoke, to recreate Paris in

01:57the 1930s. That must have been fascinating to do, but challenging.

02:02Yeah, so I mean, it's not only Paris in the 30s, also the south of France, Spain, Mexico City, and then

02:10the jungle in Mexico, there is a surrealistic city built in the middle of the jungle. And we've been to

02:16all these places, first to do research, to see, to kind of walk in the footsteps of Leonora Carrington,

02:23but then also be there to shoot. And of course, some stuff we had to recreate because Paris doesn't

02:29look like in the 30s anymore, that much. So we had to do quite a lot of set building as well. But yeah,

02:38it's it turned out really, really well. We had a fantastic cinematographer with us from Romania. And

02:45yeah, I think it's a lot of fun to kind of be zoomed back into the 30s.

02:51Absolutely. And so this is a journey for you that you've been on for a while,

02:55haven't you? Some years since you optioned the novel. You're now at the point of releasing the

03:00film to the world. Exciting? Terrifying? What is it?

03:05It's, well, it's a bit of both, but it's mostly exciting. Also, we had our world premiere in Mexico

03:12and Munich, it was a shared world premiere, which is very special, because both countries were involved

03:17in the film. And particularly being in Mexico, showing the film to a Mexican audience was really,

03:24I would say, the best experience so far I had in showing a film, because people were really

03:31overwhelmed. And they really loved the film, which is, of course, people say that very often at a

03:38premiere, but you could really feel in the room that that people really could connect with it and felt

03:44the film, because it's very much about feeling rather than, it's not an art lecture, it's really

03:49a journey. And it's a lot about the feeling. And it's first and foremost, for me, it's a film about

03:55a new beginning. Absolutely. And Lena, what about you? Are you able to stand back a little bit and enjoy,

04:00or are you still deep in the film? We just really like now to kind of travel with the film and

04:07discover it in different countries. I mean, at the Chichester Film Festival, it's going to be the UK

04:14premiere. So the UK festival launch. So first time the UK sees this film, and we're working right now

04:22to get a UK distributor for a nationwide release later in the next months. And then in September,

04:30there's going to be a big theatrical release in Mexico. So we're just going to travel with the film and

04:35hopefully, good conversations after the shows. Brilliant. Well, really lovely to meet you

04:41both and to speak to you both. And very much looking forward to seeing the film in Chichester.

04:46Thank you very much for your time. Thank you very much. See you there.

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