The new film Anora had a limited release this week where it debuted in Hollywood after its premiere at Cannes. The film won the Palm D'or at Cannes with director Sean Baker taking home a directing award as well. The lead actress Mikey Madison plays a sex worker, so it seems obvious that we are going to see nudity and intimacy. With that in mind, the director had some interesting things to say! Let's see!
Director Sean Baker is known for his unique style featuring characters who are rough around the edges. He portrays them in glowing, loving lights even though their worlds are harsh. He got major attention for his fifth film Tangerine which was well known for being the first feature film of its kind filmed entirely using iPhones. The funny film follows two trans sex workers around Los Angeles on Christmas who find out that they have the same boyfriend.
Cis actress Ana Foxx even shows her bush in one scene when a man asks to check what's going on downstairs.
His follow-up movie was the Oscar-nominated movie The Florida Project which took place at a motel in Orlando where a poor drug-addicted mother struggles to raise her daughter. Like Tangerine, the film never focused on the drama. We see the light-hearted stuff around the difficult parts, leaving the audience to know about heartbreaking pain underneath the sunny setting.
His next film was Red Rocket which was about a former porn star and it starred a porn star. Sean Baker knows what he's doing and his fourth film, Anora, is said to be his best work so far.
Anora stars breakthrough actress Mikey Madison as a sex worker who marries a rich young man on a whim. That rich young man is the son of a powerful Russian oligarch and when the news reaches his family in Russia, the family sends some guys out to make the marriage go away. We know the movie has nude scenes, but Baker had some surprising things to say regarding the way that he filmed those sex scenes.
Baker surprised people when he said that they did not use an intimacy coordinator for this film. He is not against them at all, but he uses them on a case-by-case basis in his films.
He said that he felt comfortable filming these himself, but he wanted to make sure it was a comfortable environment for everyone on set. He and the producers agreed to it only if the actors agreed as well.
Actress Mikey Madison said that she trusted Baker to direct all of her intimate scenes in Anora without a coordinator, so that's what they did. I can't wait to see how this turned out.
Watch this sex scene from Baker's seventh film Red Rocket. Watch Suzanna Son's suck sacks and see if you think Baker is qualified to film sex and intimacy films without an intimacy coordinator. It looks like he does know what he's doing!
01:31:24 Suzanna gets it on with Simon Rex, who films their encounter with a cell phone, and we see Suzanna's breasts and nearly her bush while riding him! (57 secs)
