Back in the summer of 2023, we did some digging on what the movie director Sean Baker had been up to. A combination of production notices, whispers in interviews, Instagram selfies and posts on X from social media comedians (we’re looking at you Ivy Wolk) led us to believe that a sex worker comedy was in the works, shot in New York and Las Vegas, and that Scream‘s Mikey Madison was its lead. Of course, by the time 2024’s Cannes Film Festival came around––Baker’s usual stomping ground––not only did we find out that this was all true, but that the film itself, named Anora, was excellent. Its cast, a mix of street cast twenty-somethings, a Russian newcomer Mark Eydelshteyn and that Scream star, were about to experience an earth-shifting life experience, not that they knew it. A few days after its premiere, the film won the prestigious Palme d’Or. Nearly a year later, the film is nominated for six Academy Awards.
But in the time in-between the premiere and the Palme, Baker and his cast had a few days of relative normalcy, perhaps unaware of what was about to come. Francesc Planes, the Paris-based photographer, had come to Cannes, as he does most years, looking for interesting, kitsch, off-beat subjects to shoot. We asked him to head down to the Anora afterparty and take portraits of the cast. At the time, they were fun, atmospheric party photos of some young actors having the kind of good time that feels atypical to the usually stiff experience of the festival. Now, they’re like a time capsule of the brief transition moment before many of their lives were changed forever.
Credits
Photography: Francesc Planes