Jim Jalmush voiced the fierce backlash against Mbi after the arthouse distributor took on investors with close ties with Israeli military earlier this year. Mbi co-produced the director’s latest film, “Father Mother and Sisters,” which will premiere Sunday at the Venice Film Festival.
Criticism of Mbi has been registered since it announced a $100 million investment from Sequoia Capital, a Silicon Valley-based venture capital film that also invested in a defense technology startup founded by Israeli intelligence agency in response to the terrorist attacks on October 7. It is described as “genocide benefits.”
“The relationship with Mbi started earlier and they were great to work with the film. I was disappointed and denied by this relationship (between Mbi and Sequoia). If you want to discuss it, you have to deal with Mbi. I’m not a spokesman.” “Yes, I was worried. I also have a distribution agreement with Mbi for (some films).
On a personal level, he continued, “I am an independent filmmaker and I took money from various sources to fund my films. All the companies’ money is dirty. When you start analyzing each of these film companies and their funding structures, you can’t avoid it and make movies. We.”
One of the film’s stars, Indiana Moore also focused on what Hollywood describes as “an incredible creative war and resource war”;
“People are trying to find ways to work with ethical and not possible,” she said. “I think the type of due diligence people are trying to do is the development process.”
The ongoing war in Gaza was a major topic of conversation at the Venice Film Festival, with massive protests set forth a day ago to bring attention to the humanitarian crisis.
“My Father’s Sisters and Brothers” marks her first trip to Venice in a film since 2003’s “Coffee & Cigarette.” Currently spoken in the form of triptych, “The Sisters of Father’s Mother” is an anthology of the relationship between adult children and parents. The film premieres on Sunday night at the competition and features Cate Blanchett, Vicki Creeps, Maim Bialic, Charlotte Rampling, Moore and Luka Sabato. Adam Driver, who also appears in the film, skipped the Sunday afternoon press conference.
For each chapter, “Father” follows brothers Jeff and Emily (Driver and Bialik) who check out her Hermetic Papa (Tom Ways) in rural New Jersey. “Mother” centers around sisters Lilith and Timothea (Creep and Blanchett) who reunite with their Dublin-guarded novelist mother (Rumpling). “Sister Brothers” follows twins Sky and Billy (Moore and Sabbat) as they return to their Paris apartment to deal with the family tragedy. Jalmusch wears dark sunglasses and shares his unique reasons for choosing cities that spotlight the film.
“Dublin was important. Charolet’s character is a writer, Ireland is very welcoming. Writers do not tax. I celebrate writers.” Meanwhile, he shared, “Paris is my kind of second place in my life and I love it so deeply. It’s very close to me.”
He had a less romantic answer to the motivation behind the shooting in Garden State.
“Jersey was a union question. I had to find a place within 30 miles of New York City due to the rules of the Union, or my budget would explode,” he said. “This was 29.5 miles from New York.”
The repeated questions at the press conference were where Jarmusch came up with the idea of ”sister and brothers of my father’s mother.” But even the director doesn’t really understand.
“I really don’t know where it came from. I usually carry ideas around for over a year, sometimes many years, before I finally write very quickly,” he said. “I wrote this in three weeks. It remained pretty close to my original vision.”
