Venice film festival<\/a> debut with the psychological thriller from the Italian director Luca Guadagnino. It premieres out of competition on the Lido on Friday evening.<\/p>\nThe drama is set in the world of higher education and stars Roberts as a beloved professor who finds herself at a personal and professional crossroads when a star student (the Bear\u2019s Ayo Edebiri) makes an accusation of assault against her friend and colleague (Andrew Garfield). The cast also includes Michael Stuhlbarg and Chlo\u00eb Sevigny.<\/p>\n
Unsurprisingly, the film\u2019s exploration of conflict and power dynamics spilled into a press conference on Friday, where the first question to Roberts was whether the drama undermined feminist principles.<\/p>\n
The main cast of After the Hunt, Michael Stuhlbarg, Ayo Edebiri, Julia Roberts, Chlo\u00eb Sevigny and Andrew Garfield, at Venice film festival before the film premieres. Photograph: Elisabetta A Villa\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cNot to be disagreeable because it\u2019s not in my nature,\u201d Roberts responded with a smile. \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s just reviving an argument of women being pitted against each other or not supporting each other. There\u2019s a lot of old arguments that get rejuvenated in this movie in a way that does create conversation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe best part of your question is that you all came out of the theatre talking about it. That\u2019s how we wanted it to feel. You realise what you believe in strongly because we stir it all up for you. So, you\u2019re welcome,\u201d the star said jokingly.<\/p>\n
Guadagnino added: \u201cWe are looking at people in their truths. Everyone has their own truths. It\u2019s not that one truth is more important than another.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd from the perspective of film-makers and artists, how do we see the clash of truth, and what is the boundary of these truths together? It\u2019s not about making a manifesto to revive old-fashioned values.\u201d<\/p>\n
There were several more questions about the film\u2019s politics and whether it was attempting to stoke controversy. Roberts and Edebiri were also asked what had attracted them to playing \u201ctroubled women\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cTrouble is where the juicy stuff is,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cIt\u2019s like dominos of conflict, once one falls, then suddenly everywhere you turn, there\u2019s some new piece of conflict and challenge. That\u2019s what makes it worth getting up and going to work in the morning.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s how you grow,\u201d Edebiri said. \u201cThat\u2019s the type of movie I enjoy watching.\u201d<\/p>\n
Roberts explained that working on After the Hunt reminded her of Bruce Beresford\u2019s 1983 drama Tender Mercies, which followed a former country music star whose career and relationship with his ex-wife and daughter are wrecked by alcoholism.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just thought there was something magical about the idea that a camera just landed in a place and happened to document what was going on where it landed. That\u2019s how I feel about this movie,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not so much that we\u2019re making a statement. We\u2019re just sharing these lives for this moment, and then we want everyone to go away and talk to each other. That, to me, is the most exciting bit because we\u2019re kind of losing the art of conversation in humanity right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Elsewhere, Guadagnino was asked why the opening credits appeared to hark back to the classic font used in the credits of many films directed by Woody Allen<\/a>. \u201cThe crass answer would be why not,\u201d he replied.<\/p>\n\u201cWhen I started thinking about this movie with my collaborators, we couldn\u2019t stop thinking of Crimes and Misdemeanors or Another Woman, or even Hannah and Her Sisters. And there was an infrastructure to the story that felt very linked to the great oeuvre of Woody Allen between 1985 and 1991.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt also felt like an interesting nod to thinking of an artist who has been facing some sort of problems with his being. And what is our responsibility in looking at the work of an artist that we love like him? And by the way, that font is a classic,\u201d Guadagnino said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Julia Roberts has defended her new #MeToo-themed film, After the Hunt, from accusations that it revives anti-feminist arguments,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":382770,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3940],"tags":[4080,77,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-382769","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115112777320876296","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=382769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/382770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=382769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=382769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=382769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}