Director Katherine Bigelow hopes that her new film, “House of Dynamite,” will alert you to the dangers of nuclear weapons. The tense political thriller, premiering at the Venice Film Festival on Tuesday and starring Idris Elba and Rebecca Ferguson, follows White House officials scrambling to deal with incoming missile attacks on the US
“Hopefully, this film is an invitation to decide what to do with all these weapons,” Bigelow told Venice at an official press conference. “My answer is to start cutting nuclear stockpiles. How do you defend the world?”
Bigelow said, “This is a global issue with nuclear weapons. Of course, the hope against hope is to one day reduce nuclear stockpiles. But in the meantime, we really live in dynamite homes.”
In “A House of Dynamite,” Elba portrays him as portraying the president. Elba explained the filming process. The ultra-immersive approach is designed to take the audience into the situation room where such conversations unfold.
“It was very intense and realistic about what we understood as a real situation of what would happen with this,” he said. “I’ve never been in that situation and I’m grateful that I had to decide what to do. I don’t have the courage to get involved in politics.”
Screenwriter Noah Oppenheim hopes the story will reflect “the reality of our world since the dawn of the nuclear age.” Threats of nuclear conflict have been strengthened in recent years, but he adds that the film’s “always accurate geopolitical dynamics are not really the point.”
“Currently, there are nine countries on Earth that have nuclear weapons that can end human civilization several times,” said Oppenheim, who began writing the film two years ago. “Frankly, it’s miraculous that something terrible hasn’t happened yet. Many of these weapons are in the trigger system, and in a country like ours, only the president of the authorities allows them to use them.”
“A House of Dynamite” is Bigelow’s first film in eight years since John Boyega, the historic crime drama Detroit, starring John Boyega. She was last in Venice in the 2008 Iraq war thriller The Hurt Locker. In addition to winning an Academy Award for that film, Bigelow became the first woman to win the best director Oscar. Her other major credits include “Zero Dark 30”, “Point Break” and “Blue Steel.” At a press conference Tuesday afternoon, Bigelow was greeted with great enthusiasm for her joy.
“I wish I could start every day like this,” she cracked. “We should make more movies.”
