Albert Serra's 'Sixteen Moments' Premieres at Locarno
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- Albert Serra premiered "Sixteen Moments of My Life" (Seize moments de ma vie) out of competition at the Locarno Film Festival, documenting a one-off performance by screen legend Ingrid Caven at the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord in Paris.
- Molforts, the Catalan musicians who provide Serra's film soundtracks, wrote 16 songs for Caven over years by sending CDs back and forth — Serra emphasized the musicians and singer never communicated directly, "only through the music itself."
- Serra said he plans to make a "Brigadoon"-style musical comedy next, calling it "the opposite of what I've been doing all of my life" and "maximum happiness."
- "Out of This World," Serra's next film, is 65% complete and stars Riley Keough and F. Murray Abraham as part of an American delegation traveling to Russia in the context of the Ukraine war — though Serra told Variety "it's not a war film, it's about economics," and he hopes to finish it by year's end.
- Serra said he wishes he could have directed Elvis Presley in dramatic roles and Maria Callas in light comedies, arguing Elvis "would have been an amazing dramatic actor" with the right director.
- Serra continues his fixation on performance, following his bullfighting documentary "Afternoons of Solitude" — and in "Sixteen Moments" there are no cut-aways to the audience because, as he put it, "you want me to shoot some idiots watching them? No."
Why it matters: Serra's pivot from performance documentaries into a geopolitically themed fiction film set around an American delegation to Russia during the Ukraine war is a striking creative departure for an arthouse director known for formal minimalism. With "Out of This World" 65% done and a stated year-end completion target, the project could arrive during awards season with an unusual pitch: an economic rather than military take on the conflict.
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