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Interview: Making movie is like falling in love -- U.S. director

Xinhua, September 9, 2016 Adjust font size:

"Creating cinema is always different, I would compare to falling in love where there are things that turns you on or interests you at a certain time," said U.S. director Ana Lily Amirpour.

"I invent things to exist just for myself and I would never presume to know or anticipate the tastes of anybody else -- that is none of my business," Amirpour told Xinhua about her film "The Bad Batch" in competition at the ongoing Venice Film Festival.

The story, a sort of pop Western-horror, turns around a U.S. deserted area where, the "rejects of the society" by law are pushed into a double nightmare. The movie is starred by Keanu Reeves, Jim Carrey Diego Luna.

"However, I think cinema is a populist art form and it requires people to interact with it but when I'm making it I'm just alone with myself and my crew," said Amirpour, who also directed a movie called "A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night."

About the creation process, the director said that when she was writing this movie, she deconstructed her own personality and went through many massive changes.

She believed that the cannibalism topic was the good way to show, in the simplest way, how violent you can be when changes, like a death or a divorce, happen to you.

"For me shooting a film is like being in the whole fairy tale where you create your own universe. It is such a great thing because we all try to find a meaning existing and when I'm making it I have all the answers," Amirpour said.

Asked about the tough work on set with her main protagonist Suki Waterhouse, the director said, "she was very uncomfortable, then it was a very physical shoot in the middle of the desert with sand storms, winds, animals, kids."

"It was very wild but also very fun but when we met the first time in the bar I said to her 'you are going to suffer in an unimaginable way.' It was very hard on set but she was very special and powerful like few others actress," Amirpour said.

On the other actors, Amirpour said: "Keanu is a dream to work with. He gives so much on set and he is super collaborative, trustable, in one word awesome, just like with Jim (Carrey)." Endi