Angelina Jolie (Los Angeles, 50 years old) only spends Sunday afternoon in San Sebastián. But that handful of hours have been squeezed by their fans, who have enjoyed their passage through the city. Until last Wednesday his assistance was not confirmed, because he is rolling in London. But it is very involved in promoting Couture, that competes this Sunday at Zinemaldia. So much, that at some point in her press conference she has cut her answers for the emotion: not in vain her character faces a breast cancer, a process that she herself has lived, in the middle of a divorce.
Before the previous pass to his film ended, a crowd was already crowded at the Kursaal door. Jolie had arrived from London, from the filming of Anxious People, Directed by Marc Forster, fitting his displacement in his rest day. At noon he entered through a service door to the María Cristina hotel. He later stepped on the Kursaal carpet to present the gala session of Couture, by Alice Winocour. During the projection, the press conference was held, and the team (next to Winocour and Jolie were four other members of the cast, with Louis Garrel as a more popular face) returned to greet, before changing the black gala dress and returning to sleep in London.
Couture He plays the narrative mosaic through various women who participate in Paris Fashion Week: an African model, a seamstress, a makeup artist and a horror film director hired by a haute couture house to film a short one that opens its parade. That filmmaker, Maxine Walker, who is going through a divorce, receives a call from his doctor from the US: he has to urgently go see an oncologist in France. And every hour he tells if he wants to overcome an aggressive breast cancer, just when Walker enjoys his best artistic moment.
Jolie underwent a double preventive mastectomy in 2013, after knowing that he had inherited, for mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, a high risk of breast cancer. His doctors, he explained at the time, estimated that he had 87% risk of contracting breast cancer and 50% of ovarian cancer. So that double mastectomy was made, and, two years later, the ovaries were removed. In San Sebastián, he pointed out: “I lost my mother and my grandmother for that cancer. In my case, these operations have been my choice, when in general many other women cannot choose. It is very important that that trip of women is understood on screen, and that men also know.”
As director, Jolie had already talked about military conflicts and pain in the world, as in In land of blood and honey, For example. And in Couture Fashion and cancer are portrayed with a similar battle approach. “There is effectively in both films a war and hope to achieve a life without suffering,” Jolie explained. “It is a desire for the human condition. I want to believe that we are always united as human beings, that helps cinema when we gather in a dark room to share.” Of Couture He liked all that approach and, finished the film, he has confirmed that “the creation process has been healer.”
What is Jolie afraid today? The actress has needed time, has silenced, and with her the entire room, crowded. And at his start the headline has released: “I love my country, but I do not recognize it at this time. They are very difficult times. My family, my friends, my worldview is international. And anything in any part of the world that divides or limits the expressions and freedoms of people seems very dangerous to me.”
At another exciting moment of the press conference, which started 20 minutes late and lasted about 40, Jolie recalled that he used a necklace from his mother, Marcheline Bertrand, in the filming to feel protected. In addition, his mother used to write letters to Jolie’s characters, so, what would Marcheline have written to Maxine? “Uf, it is very difficult for me to talk about her, I would have loved you. I think a lot about my mother. And with Couture more, because she spent a lot of time in the hospital. I wish I could have had that opportunity to battle against cancer, having enjoyed life … I excite myself very much, so I can’t answer because I cry.” Bertrand died in 2007 for cancer, as Aunt and Jolie’s grandmother had done before.
And as he arrived, among applause, Jolie left. He spoke much less than the director of the film, and distributed play to her castmates. But when he took the floor he was sincere, exciting and forceful. The woman did not devour the star.
