“The Brutalist” star Emma Laird and “Dunkirk” star Fionn Whitehead star in Alex Brunois’ psychological drama “Satisfaction,” about a weak bond that begins to unravel during a holiday on a Greek island, will have its Greek premiere on Nov. 2 at the Thessaloniki Film Festival.
The film, which bowed at SXSW earlier this year, marks Brunova’s feature directorial debut, with Brunova also writing the script and credited with producing. Produced by Perfect Circle Films, Driven Equation, Carte Blanche and Constant Production, it will compete for the Golden Alexander in Thessaloniki’s main competition. British-French sales and production company Alief is handling global sales, with UTA representing North American rights.
“Satisfaction” depicts the tumultuous relationship between Laura (Laird) and Philip (Whitehead), two musicians who vacation on a remote, windswept Greek island during the balmy off-season. Gradually, the obvious discomfort in their relationship comes into focus, and an awkward rift develops that the duo discreetly dances around.
Things change forever when the couple witness a horrific incident of domestic violence and then run into a beautiful stranger, Elena, played by Holy Spider’s Zar Amir Ebrahimi, upsetting the delicate power balance between Laura and Philip. Old wounds threaten to reopen and the couple’s long-buried traumas finally emerge into the bright Mediterranean sunlight.
“Satisfaction” has its roots in a play Brunois directed 10 years ago, about a couple on vacation “struggling to cope with the invisible weight between them,” she says. In the process of defining that invisible burden, the director realized, “It’s something I’ve buried inside myself for years and something I wasn’t ready to face.”
It took Brunois eight years and more than 100 drafts to confront that trauma through Satisfaction. She calls the film “a letter to my younger self.” Stating that she was compelled to write the screenplay to “convey my own experiences,” she describes it as an attempt to “turn something painful into a story with a beginning, middle, and end.”
“Trauma happens to everyone. Everyone has pain,” Brunova told Variety. “To truly heal from trauma, it’s not enough to just face it. You have to accept it as part of your story. You have to accept it as part of who you are, and you have to really embrace it and be able to say this happened, and it made me who I am, and I’m stronger because of it.”
“Satisfaction” is set between an unnamed Greek island and East London, where the young couple met two years ago. Philip, an up-and-coming composer, is fascinated by the sight of Laura, a rising star at the conservatory, playing the piano at a house party. Their unexpected relationship is complicated by the arrival of Laura’s girlfriend Angela, played by Adwoa Aboah (Too Much).
Fionn Whitehead (left) and Saar Amir Ebrahimi appear in Satisfaction
Presented by Perfect Circle Films
Nevertheless, their closeness grows stronger, and “Satisfaction” begins to pull the strings as Laura finds herself in an increasingly toxic situation, weaving together the whirlwind of their courtship in London and their growing estrangement in Greece. Brunois likens it to “Stockholm syndrome.”
“Life is the story we tell ourselves. Life is the story we tell ourselves about ourselves,” she says. “And it’s easier to tell yourself this is okay, I’m okay, this is how it should be, this is what I deserve. And unfortunately, a lot of people who find themselves in Laura’s situation tell themselves that they don’t deserve anything better.
“It’s easier to stay in this unhealthy state than to face the truth, face the pain, and face the fact that you’ve been wronged by someone you love,” she continues. “It’s a process of self-erasure, where you’re willing to betray yourself to protect your loved ones and say to yourself, ‘I’m okay with this.'”
Laura’s sense of alienation, estranged not only from Philip but also from herself, finds a suitable backdrop on the remote island of Antiparos in the Cyclades. Its “vast seascapes and empty landscapes” “make you feel very small and insignificant,” Brunois said. The director said that from the moment he arrived, he “felt a very strong emotional and spiritual bond with this island,” adding, “When I got off the ferry, I felt a really strong sense of déjà vu, as if I had already been there and had already shot the movie.”
The elements and natural environment of Antiparos were crucial to “Satisfaction,” and sound designer Javier Umpierrez (“Memoria,” “La Cocina”) recorded hundreds of island sounds to create the film’s rich aural landscape. It is combined with the rich photography of Hungarian cinematographer Mate Helbai (Of Body and Soul), which Brunois says captures the island’s raw natural beauty, including the dramatic sway of the Mediterranean Sea, whose powerful ebb and flow evokes flow and change, providing a fitting metaphor for a film that “has change and evolution in its DNA.”
“I think this is a hopeful message for trauma stories. Sometimes we get hung up on trauma, but we don’t have to,” she says. “As humans, we are always changing, evolving, changing, and thank God, because we can rediscover ourselves and rewrite our stories. And we write the story of who we are.”
Thessaloniki Film Festival runs from October 30th to November 9th.
