The discussion with the cast and crew of Hot Milk quickly got personal on Friday.
British director Rebecca Lenkiewicz debuts her first feature at the Berlin Film Festival this week with stars Fiona Shaw, Emma Mackey and Vicky Krieps on her arm.
The movie follows Rose (Shaw) and her daughter Sofia (Mackey) who travel to the Spanish seaside town of Almería to consult with the shamanic Dr. Gomez, a physician who could possibly hold the cure to Rose’s mystery illness.
But in the sultry atmosphere of this sun-bleached town, Sofia, after being trapped by her mother’s illness all her life, finally starts to shed her inhibitions, enticed by the persuasive charms of enigmatic traveler Ingrid (Krieps).
“It’s a big question, and there’s a lot of talk about assisted dying in Britain at the moment,” said Lenkiewicz when asked about the film’s themes of dying with dignity and the success of recent euthanasia-based films such as Pedro Almodovar’s The Room Next Door. Ministers in the U.K. Parliament voted in support of a proposal to legalize assisted dying in England and Wales last year, though further scrutiny and political votes await before the bill could become law.
The filmmaker, who is the daughter of playwright Peter Quint and step-daughter of artist Robert Lenkiewicz, continued: “It’s very pertinent to me. My father was chronically depressed, and aged 62 he chose to check out of this crazy world. And I think we could have had a had a far easier time. Certain laws would be different, and that was hard.
“With the case of Rose, it’s life and death. And I feel strongly that… we should be given the choice,” she added.
It’s Shaw’s first film festival ever, she revealed to the Berlinale press. “I’m 66 years of age!” the Harry Potter, Andor and Killing Eve star alongside Mackey and Krieps. She continued, discussing the tense relationships between characters and their purported contempt for life.
“It’s about failure,” Shaw answered. “I think films about failure are really important… Failure is a terrible thing, and we all have it, but we also have aspiration.”
The Berlinale runs Feb. 13-23.
