UPDATED: Ramsay tells Variety’s Jessica Kiang that she actually completed filming “Polaris,” starring Joaquin Phoenix. So expect it at next year’s Cannes.
EARLIER: Lynne Ramsay had a masterclass at the Sarajevo Film Festival and gave us some additional details on her upcoming projects (via Variety).
It turns out that she’s working on three films, implying that her creative process is to work on multiple projects at the same time. The first one is “Stone Mattress,” which she is still writing but is “shaping up very nicely.” She is currently scouting locations for that one and apparently looking to shoot in the Arctic.
“It’s quite a difficult film to make, because it’s [set on] a cruise ship in the Arctic, so there’s a lot of elements,” she said. “You can only shoot it in a certain time frame. And…you’ve got to be in the Arctic and bits of the Arctic are melting in specific places. So it’s quite complicated, that film.”
Ramsay describes it as something of a cat-and-mouse game between two women, and that Julianne Moore is playing a psychopath, but one that has a clear motive. She adds that the film is darkly comedic and that she wanted to bring a lot of Margaret Atwood's dark humour to the story.
As for her Jennifer Lawrence project, “Die My Love”, Ramsay says it’s her next one to film. It is described as more comedic, and another examination on motherhood. The source material is based on the novel by Argentinian writer Ariana Harwicz about an isolated woman living in rural France who loses her mind amid marriage and motherhood.
The third project, “Polaris,” is with Joaquin Phoenix and Rooney Mara, which she describes as "a photographer who meets the devil in Alaska". Ramsay claims that production wrapped on her latest collaboration with Phoenix, though she said the film could be released with the title “Dark Slides.”
Ramsay added that these three projects will have a certain level of violence, one is about a psychopath, the second is ecological and the third is psychological.
Last we heard from Ramsay, she had premiered “You Were Never Really Here” at Cannes in 2017. It screened without end credits, the film had just wrapped shooting that very month. It still managed to garner great reviews.
Ramsay admitted that the film was sent to Cannes by her producer way before the film was actually ready — they were still in the middle of filming. Her producer told her to just insert storyboards where there hadn't been anything filmed yet, which she refused to do.
Regardless, it was a wise decision as Ramsay won Best Screenplay and Phoenix won Best Actor.
Of course, we all know the rule: take these reactions with a grain of salt rather than treating them as gospel. Still, I will say that the film tested like gangbusters earlier this year, and Lionsgate clearly has confidence.