Acclaimed Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos said on Thursday he hoped to “trigger people” to think more about human extinction in his new film “Bugonia”, an apocalyptic satire about conspiracy theories and climate change starring Emma Stone.
The film premieres at the Venice Film Festival on Thursday, where long-time collaborators Lanthimos and Stone are hoping to repeat their successful formula from 2023.
In that year, they landed the top prize for “Poor Things”.
Stone went on to win a Best Actress award at the Oscars for her role in the explicit reworking of Frankenstein.
“Bugonia” features Lanthimos’s trademark absurdist humour alongside occasional graphic violence.
Stone plays a high-powered pharmaceutical executive kidnapped by a pair of conspiracy theorists convinced she is destroying the world as an alien.
“Humanity is facing a reckoning very soon — like people need to choose the right path in many ways. Otherwise, I don’t know how much time we have,” Lanthimos told reporters alongside Stone and co-star Jesse Plemons in Venice.
The film is a “reflection of our times and hopefully will trigger people to think about what’s happening today all around the world”, he added.
Asked about his own views on extraterrestrial life, Lanthimos said he was still “looking for an answer”, while Stone declared: “I believe in aliens”.
She said she had been influenced by the late US astronomer Carl Sagan and his TV series “Cosmos”.
She said Sagan was “one of my favourite people that has ever lived”.
“I think he very deeply believed that the idea that we are alone in this vast expanse of the universe — not that we’re being watched — is a pretty narcissistic thing.
“So yes, I’m coming out: I believe in aliens,” she said to laughs.
Source: Agence France-Presse
