Trier Weaves His Cannes Magic again with Family Affair

Scandi stars: Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Stellan Skarsgard and Renate Reinsve at the 'Sentimental Value' premiere at Cannes. Valery HACHE / AFP
Scandi stars: Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Stellan Skarsgard and Renate Reinsve at the 'Sentimental Value' premiere at Cannes. Valery HACHE / AFP
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Trier Weaves His Cannes Magic again with Family Affair

Scandi stars: Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Stellan Skarsgard and Renate Reinsve at the 'Sentimental Value' premiere at Cannes. Valery HACHE / AFP
Scandi stars: Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Stellan Skarsgard and Renate Reinsve at the 'Sentimental Value' premiere at Cannes. Valery HACHE / AFP

Joachim Trier found himself crying behind the camera as he shot "Sentimental Value", his moving new tale about a quietly fractured family that got a 15-minute standing ovation at the end of its Wednesday premiere at the Cannes film festival.

"It sounds cheesy," he said, "but I wept a lot making this film because I was so moved by the actors" playing members of an arty family in Oslo who cannot talk to each other despite all their supposed sophistication, AFP said.

"The actors are my friends. I know that they were being halfway a character and halfway themselves. And that they were also dealing with stuff," said the maker of "The Worst Person in the World", which landed the Norwegian two Oscar nominations and won newcomer Renate Reinsve the best actress award at Cannes in 2021.

Many critics that year said it also should have won the Palme d'Or top prize.

"We were a family too," said Trier, rehearsing his script around the kitchen table of the beautiful old wooden home in Oslo where the film was shot, itself a character in the film.

The heads that keep butting in Trier's on-screen family are the absent father, an arthouse filmmaker who has long been put out to grass, played by Swedish legend Stellan Skarsgard, and his stage actress daughter (Reinsve).

"I think a lot of families carry woundedness and grief," Trier said.

"And talk often doesn't help. It gets argumentative. We get stuck in our positions, the roles we give each other unconsciously."

Elle Fanning a 'mensch'

The bad old dynamics are changed by the arrival of Hollywood star -- Elle Fanning playing someone only millimeters from her real self -- a fan of the father, who comes bearing lots of Netflix dollars to revive one of his long-stalled scripts.

"We don't get too many Hollywood stars wanting to be in small Norwegian-language films," Trier joked.

But just like her character in the film, Fanning got the part through complete fandom, flying to Oslo between shooting the Bob Dylan biopic, "A Complete Unknown", and the new "Predator" in New Zealand.

"I am a massive fan" of Trier, she told AFP in Cannes, where the film is in the running for the Palme d'Or.

"I think 'The Worst Person in the World' is easily one of the best films in the last decade or even longer. It is just perfect."

"When Joachim sent me the script I read it and I was just crying and crying by the final page. It is so emotional," Fanning added.

"It's a very personal piece for Joachim and you can just feel that rawness in it."

Trier -- who comes from a family steeped in the Scandinavian film industry -- admitted it is all very "meta. You're making a film about a family with your filmmaking family. And you've got a meta Hollywood star."

But they are not that many parallels with his biological family.

"It's not like I'm throwing anyone under the bus. My whole family has actually seen the film and are very supportive," he said.

The filmmaker father, he insisted, is a mash-up of great auteurs such as Ingmar Bergman, Krzysztof Kieslowski and John Cassavetes.

Trier, 51, is famous for the bond he builds with his actors and he praised Fanning as the latest member of the family.

"She is a real mensch -- a really kind and collaborative, cool person," he said.

Trier 'magic'

The "magic" that Fanning said Trier creates on set comes from taking your time, he told AFP, taking on the big themes with a light, humorous touch.

"Anyone who's had experience of therapy -- and I have -- will know that it's about the silences and letting things arrive. Very often is also the case with actors," said Trier.

"We had quite a few moments like that in the film actually. Renate would look at me and I look at her and I say, 'What was that? That was interesting.' And we don't talk about it anymore.

"But when people see it in editing, they go, 'Wow!'"



International K-Pop Fans Thrill to Prospect of BTS Reunion 

Fans of K-pop band BTS wait for photos near an ARMY Bomb during the annual 2025 BTS Festa celebrating the BTS' debut anniversary in Goyang, South Korea, Friday, June 13, 2025. (AP)
Fans of K-pop band BTS wait for photos near an ARMY Bomb during the annual 2025 BTS Festa celebrating the BTS' debut anniversary in Goyang, South Korea, Friday, June 13, 2025. (AP)
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International K-Pop Fans Thrill to Prospect of BTS Reunion 

Fans of K-pop band BTS wait for photos near an ARMY Bomb during the annual 2025 BTS Festa celebrating the BTS' debut anniversary in Goyang, South Korea, Friday, June 13, 2025. (AP)
Fans of K-pop band BTS wait for photos near an ARMY Bomb during the annual 2025 BTS Festa celebrating the BTS' debut anniversary in Goyang, South Korea, Friday, June 13, 2025. (AP)

Thousands of international fans of K-pop megastars BTS gathered on Friday in the suburbs of Seoul amid mounting excitement over an expected reunion of the group after its members complete mandatory service in the South Korean military.

This year's BTS Festa marks the 12th anniversary of the group, which last performed together in 2022 and has not toured since 2019 because of the global pandemic and subsequent military service obligations of its members.

It was unclear if any of the recently discharged performers would appear at the festival organized by the group's management agency, HYBE.

But that did not dampen the enthusiasm of fans, some of whom flew in from around the world hoping to spot some of the superstars at the gathering or at a pair of solo concerts by BTS rapper J-Hope as he wraps up his "Hope on the Stage" world tour.

"I want to enjoy everything because there are many things to do here and ... I hope to see the guys maybe," said Karla Linan Saucede, 33, who travelled from Mexico with her sister and friends.

"It's gone past excitement and into almost being numb," said Ayla O'Ryan, 45, from Scotland, adding that she planned a visit this month to practice Korean in the capital so that she could attend.

BTS' members Jimin and Jungkook discharged from the South Korean military on Wednesday, become the fifth and sixth to complete their service. Members RM and V were discharged on Tuesday and the last to finish will be Suga on June 21.

While details of a reunion have not been released, the group is expected to hold its largest ever world tour in 2026, says NH Securities, one of South Korea's largest investment firms.

Shares in HYBE jumped 11.3% in June as brokerages raised their sales estimates and target price for the agency ahead of the group's comeback.