While they arrive from totally different worlds, “Avatar” director James Cameron and “Murina” helmer Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović bonded over their shared ardour for filmmaking throughout a video interview (see under) hosted by Disney+ forward of the Independent Spirit Awards.
“Murina” was launched within the U.S. by Kino Lorber and is is vying for 3 Spirit Awards — first movie, breakthrough efficiency and cinematography. It world premiered at Cannes the place it received the Camera d’Or and went on to win a Gotham award for its younger star Gracija Filipović.
The movie is ready on a distant island alongside Croatia’s Adriatic coast the place 17-year-old Julija spends her days diving for eel, longing to free herself from her domineering father, Ante. When a wealthy and mysterious visitor, Javier, comes visiting, he appears to supply a manner out for Julija. But Javier’s presence units off a battle of masculine ego that pushes Ante to humiliate and management his daughter much more.
Cameron, whose newest movie “Avatar: The Way of Water” is nominated for greatest image on the Oscars, requested the New York-based filmmaker why she had the need to inform a “four-character drama” with the “added burden of filming underwater.” Kusijanović mentioned she grew up in Croatia and was “at all times across the water,” however she ultimately turned “frightened of water.” Kusijanović mentioned creativity “at all times comes from concern.” “To create one thing with urgency and stress you need to go from concern,” she continued.
Speaking of the symbolic resonance of water, Cameron mentioned “we at all times join with it in an virtually Jungian manner.” “I believe, when it comes to our unconscious (…) water is concurrently inviting, and in addition scary and alien. So I believe ‘Murina’ speaks to all of the issues.”
The Oscar-winning director of “Titanic” mentioned “each movie is a private journey.” He remembered having a recurring nightmare early in his profession “of an enormous wave that was coming towards the shore and there wasn’t time to get away and irrespective of how briskly you climbed and also you see it hitting behind you.”
Then he made “The Abyss” in 1988 and in it, “there’s an enormous wave sequence the place [he] was processing that picture of a wave, virtually hits however then it stops.”
“Avatar,” in the meantime, got here from his “gnawing concern for the state of our world and what we’re dropping: The magnificence and the complexity and variety of nature that we’re systematically destroying.”
The Canadian director additionally praised the feminist message of “Murina” and the dedication that emanates from Filipović’s efficiency.
“I don’t assume anyone leaves the theater believing that Julija will not be going to make it. She’ll make it as a result of she’s decided,” mentioned Cameron. “At first, she tries to flee by a person as many ladies do in life. Men maintain the facility, they’ll take you out of your life, change your existence, all these issues, and she or he places a lot on to that after which in the end she’s left with simply herself and her resolution to only swim, simply go, and I like, symbolically.”
Kusijanović, who’s repped by UTA, is creating her sophomore outing, amongst different initiatives starting from movie to TV.
