Last summer, 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 garnered enough dough to make his next film.
Leigh, who is 80, started shooting this mysterious new film in May and, I’m being told, production has since wrapped.
All that’s been revealed about this new film is that it “will explore family relationships in the post-pandemic world”. A Deadline source adds that 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.
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, who’s last film was released five years ago, has 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.
Still no distributor for "Bucking Fastard," "Alpha Gang," "The Last Photograph," "Closing Night," and "The Life and Deaths of Wilson Shedd." The issue seems to be quality more than a lack of willingness to buy.