The 72nd San Sebastian Film Festival is set to open tonight with Audrey Diwan’s "Emmanuelle." The film had been rejected by Cannes and Venice before finally settling for the splashy San Sebastian opener slot.
The film still comes with some hefty expectations as it’s been a little over three years since Diwan won the Golden Lion at Venice for her abortion drama, “Happening.”
In a new interview with Le Parisien, Diwan opens up about the film, recognizing that "Emmanuelle" had indeed been rejected by the Cannes selection committee. She believes it wasn’t accepted because she rushed the film and only realized afterwards that it wasn’t ready and that it could actually use three more weeks in editing room.
Ok, fine, your film wasn’t ready for Cannes, but it was ready by the time Venice rejected it. Many San Sebastian world premieres occur with Cannes and Venice rejections. That’s just part of the game. Regardless, Diwan says that San Sebastian director, José Luis Rebordinos, sent her an email that read more like a love letter for the film, and she immediately accepted his invitation.
“Emmanuelle” stars Noémie Merlant, Naomi Watts, Jamie Campbell Bower, and Will Sharpe. The film is an adaptation of Emmanuelle Arsan's erotic novel — which was originally made into a series of popular softcore porn movies in the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s. Seinfeld hilariously parodied these films with the fictional “Rochelle, Rochelle” (“a young girl’s strange erotic journey from Milan or Minsk”).
Merlant plays the titular character — a woman who embarks on numerous sexcapades. Based on the trailer alone, it looks like Diwan’s tackling of the erotica classic will be fairly faithful to the source material. It also seems to be a major step back —artistically speaking— to 1994’s “Emmanuelle in Space”.
Nobody expected a 55-year-old NC-17 movie to be one of the surprise box office stories of the fall. Yet here we are, and this absolutely puts a smile on my face.