Last June, I wrote about Mike Leigh struggling to find financing for his next project. Then, a few months later, I was told that he’d finally found enough dough to make his next one.
Today, Deadline reports that Leigh, who is 80, has started shooting this mysterious new film. The aim is probably Cannes 2024. All that’s been revealed is that the film “will explore family relationships in the post-pandemic world”.
A Deadline source said the Brit auteur will “return to his ongoing exploration of the contemporary world with a tragicomic study of human strengths and weaknesses.”
I had been told last year 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.
Leigh has been a consistent figure in the world cinema scene with landmark works such as “Secrets and Lies", “Life is Sweet,” and “Naked.”
However, the British director has been struggling of late, 2014's "Mr. Turner," a biopic of artist J.M.W Turner, barely made any scratch and 2018’s “Peterloo” was famously rejected by Cannes.
Although this next film has officially started production, it might have been loosely shooting weeks prior.
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.