The Hollywood Reporter Interviews Benh Zeitlin

Zeitlin: People ask me a lot why I think the film is connecting so broadly. I feel like in the modern world, people’s connection to their own culture and history is very tenuous. It’s not just the threat of climate-based catastrophe like in Louisiana or Japan, but you also see yourgrandmother’s garden turning into a Jamba Juice. So there’s an erasure of home, with individual cultures under threat of globalization. That’s a universal issue and I think people everywhere are satisfied by seeing heroes fight for that history and culture. I feel it when I go back home to New York, too: my old bar, Yogi’s, the bear bar, is now a Pinkberry. But Louisiana has fought that very effectively. My parents are folklorists and as kids we visited lots ofcities. I remember New Orleans immediately striking me. I was like 13 years old when I first visited, and from then until I moved there to make my short in2008, New Orleans is where I wanted to be. You get there and you feel this dark magic. Benh Zeitlin chats with the Hollywood Reporter at Deauville. Read the entire interview here.