Cannes 2024: Sean Baker’s Film ‘Anora’ is

It’s always an especially exhilarating experience to stumble upon a film so completely unlike anything that has been made before that it leaves you on a cinematic high after walking out of the theater. At the midway point in the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, we finally get to experience the bliss of Anora, the latest film from American filmmaker Sean Baker. Anora is his eighth feature film so far, and he was already in Cannes in 2017 with The Florida Project (in the Directors’ Fortnight sidebar) and again in 2021 with Red Rocket. This might just be hist best yet. France obviously loves him, but so does everyone else – this film has received the highest marks out of any in the Main Competition from all of the critics at this year’s festival. The film’s title is the name of the young woman who stars in the film, a young stripper from New York City named Anora who falls for a rich Russian kid after he pays her to hook up with him. On a whirlwind trip to Las Vegas they end up getting married (Vegas, baby Vegas!!) – but there’s so much more going on in this film than just that. // Continue Reading ›