BERLIN – A disturbing family thriller, a contemporary reimagining of Marco Bellocchio's Fists in the Pocket (I pugni in tasca) is one of the most anticipated films in the competition: Rosebush Pruning from Brazilian-French-Algerian director and screenwriter Karim Aïnouz, was co-written with Efthymis Filippou, screenwriter for Yorgos Lanthimos (Kinds of Kindness, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, The Lobster), whose influence is clear. The result is a satirically exaggerated portrait of a profoundly unhappy, wealthy family that begins to crumble when secrets and repressed emotional abuse emerge.
Obsessive followers of fashion, the family members adore and collect clothes, purchased for pure ostentation like jewellery. Their ambiguous and unstable family relationships revealed all the hypocrisy and emotional emptiness of the bourgeoisie, showcased by the performances of a high-profile cast that includes Callum Turner, Riley Keough, Jamie Bell, Elle Fanning, Pamela Anderson.
Anderson said of her role as a rebellious mother who disappears, pretending to be dead, to follow her true love: "Playing someone who runs away from her own family, from her own biological children, was a painful discovery. I thought a lot about the times we live in: many young people inherit wealth and superficiality. This character was particularly interesting because she is gay and has a rebellious spirit which made portraying her exciting".
Strong, sharp, explicitly amoral images reflect the characters' intimate fractures: "My scripts include violence and scenes that can be provocative", notes screenwriter Efthymis Filippou. "However, they are not there to shock. When you try to describe human beings and life, you can't avoid certain elements. It's not a question of provocation, but of representing humanity."
In describing the film's genesis, Karim Aïnouz discusses the connection with Marco Bellocchio's 'Fists in the Pocket' (1965) which explicitly inspired Rosebush Pruning. The director found Bellocchio's masterpiece to be the starting point for exploring new themes related to family, patriarchy, and rebellion: "Rewatching Bellocchio's film was like watching the Brothers Grimm on acid. I thought: how can we take it to the next level? A complicated challenge, both exciting and intimidating: how can we make something inspired by a true masterpiece?" He continues: “Bellocchio's film explored revolution and change. It was 1965, so there was a strong sense of explosion. I made some changes because I wanted to talk about patriarchy and the traditional family, such as inserting the character of the blind father in place of the mother”.
The film is a Italy – Germany – Spain - United Kingdom co-production (Match Factory Productions, The Apartment, Kavac, Sur-Film, Crybaby Films, Mubi, Rai Cinema, Metafilms, Anna Films, In Bloom), with the support of Film und Medienstiftung NRW, Medienboard, and the German Federal Film Board.
Karim Aïnouz emphasizes the importance of public funding for cinema as a guarantee of creative and artistic freedom with firm belief in the need to protect and enhance it, noting: "We live in an era where censorship and political judgments on what we do are extremely dangerous, especially in some countries. That's why the public support received to make this film was so extraordinary. It's essential to continue expressing ourselves the way we believe is right. This film demonstrates how essential public funding is. This is not just doing something for the audience: to achieve a result, we need to be supported by tools like film funding."
“I come from a country where cinema wouldn't exist without public support”, he adds. "I remember that in my early Brazilian films, there would be tons of logos in the opening credits. At some festivals, people would laugh, 'Why all these logos?'. I'd answer that the institutions behind the logos never asked me what I was doing. They simply supported the project; that's why they're there".