Last summer, I wrote about Mike Leigh struggling to find funding for his next project. Then, a few months later, I was told that he’d finally garnered enough dough to make this next film.
Leigh, who is 80, started shooting this mysterious new film in May and, I was told, production wrapped in August. I can now also report that the title of this new film is “Hard Truths.”
All that’s been revealed otherwise is that it “will explore family relationships in the post-pandemic world”. A source had added that the Brit auteur will “return to his ongoing exploration of the contemporary world with a tragicomic study of human strengths and weaknesses.”
The rumor was that it would feature an all-Black cast, which is definitely a departure for the filmmaker, who is primarily known for his kitchen-sink influenced dramas about mundane lower-to-middle-class white families.
The aim is probably a Cannes premiere — he’s screened many of his most famous films on the Croisette. However, 2018’s “Peterloo” was infamously rejected by Cannes and instead premiered at the Venice Film Festival a few months later.
Leigh’s last film was released five years ago, but he’s been a consistent figure in world scene with landmark works such as “Secrets and Lies", “Life is Sweet” and “Naked.”
Leigh is notorious for not having a script to work with, and really not saying anything about what the film’s going to be, exploring and arriving at the film organically. The writing comes relatively late in the process, the result of a close collaboration with his cast.