A conversation with Michel Franco

Get to know the director behind this year’s opening film, New Order, in a director’s talk from London Film Festival.

Director’s Portrait

Have you had the chance to see the opening film yet? Now, you can watch a director’s talk with Michel Franco that touches upon the whole of his career. The conversation, moderated by Maria Delgado, took place during BFI London Film Festival in October and is made available through British Film Institute. The conversation will be available on the digital platform with the rental of New Order, After Lucia and Daniel & Ana.

You can also watch it here:

Extra screenings of New Order

The opening film New Order was sold out already on Saturday, and we have been in dialogue with the Norwegian film distributor Tour de Force about extra screenings. Starting monday, we have now made available extra screenings of the film, together with the director’s talk.

N.B: Unfortunately, After Lucia will not be available for rent at the festival after all, because we have received a copy of the film without functioning subtitles. We are very sorry about this!

About Michel Franco

Director, producer and screenwriter. The Mexican filmmaker Michel Franco keeps himself busy, and likes to be involved in multiple aspects of a film production. This leads to greater control, and marks his projects with a more distinct artistic signature than the film industry usually allows. This makes it exciting to observe what moves within Franco’s works, because they presumably reveal something about him as a person. And watching the films he has directed thus far, it becomes apparent that this is an artist that is primarily preoccupied with the darker realities of human existence.

After making several shorts, he made his feature film debut with Daniel & Ana, which was nominated for the Camera D`or at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. A pair of siblings are kidnapped and forced to have sex on camera, and are left with a ransom demand and unimaginable trauma. Here, Franco pulls us into his universe, where dramatic circumstances leave the human beast gnawing away at spirit and dignity. This may also describe many of his later films, not least After Lucia, which revolves around the brutal teen culture of circulating sexual videos.

In several of his later films, both as producer and director, Franco exhibits a marked political awareness. However, his newest film New Order is, in his own words, the first of his films to explicitly comment on the political situation in Mexico. And after seeing the film, there is reason to be worried about the direction in which the country is heading.

Read about the films here: