Jessica Chastain and Michel Franco have secretly shot another movie together.
Per The Hollywood Reporter, Franco and Chastain were attending the Venice Film Festival to show off their new film, Memory, when it was revealed they’d already shot another movie together over the past summer, Dreams.
Written and directed by Franco, Dreams tells a love story between a woman who works for an arts foundation and a ballet dancer. Starring alongside Chastain in the movie are Isaac Hernández (The King of All the World) and Rupert Friend (The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, Obi-Wan Kenobi).
Dreams received a Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) waiver, meaning it was allowed to shoot during the ongoing actors strike. The movie was filmed in San Francisco with an approximate $3 million budget. Franco and Eréndira Núñez Larios both serve as producers.
Chastain and Franco’s Memory receives high praise out of Venice
Memory (not to be confused with the 2022 Liam Neeson movie of the same name), meanwhile, is a Franco-directed drama that received an eight-minute standing ovation at its Venice Film Festival premiere. It also played at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 12, 2023.
The film sees Chastain play a woman, Sylvia, who is struggling to overcome a difficult past and becomes close with a man named Saul (Peter Sarsgaard), who has early onset dementia. Sarsgaard won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor award for his performance when Memory screened at the Venice Film Festival.
Starring alongside Chastain and Sarsgaard in Memory are Merritt Wever, Jessica Harper, Elsie Fisher, Brooke Timber, Josh Charles, and Jackson Dorfman.
Franco’s past works include 2009’s Daniel and Ana, 2012’s After Lucia, 2013’s Through the Eyes, 2015’s Chronic, 2017’s April’s Daughter, and 2020’s New Order. Prior to Memory, his most recent film was Sundown, which released in 2021 and starred Tim Roth.
