Ursula Meier’s “Sister” has been chosen as Switzerland’s entry into the Foreign Oscar race. The film opens October 5. Check out our story and interview below, originally published during the Los Angeles Film Festival.
Original content is a novelty these days; when it works it’s exhilarating. Ursula Meier’s Swiss “Sister” (which won the Silver Bear at Berlin) is a knockout, skillfully crafted and moving. It features Lea Seydoux’s best-yet performance and a star-making turn from Kacey Mottey Klein as a professional 12-year old ski-resort thief. The story is best discovered in the theater as it unfolds. Fans of the Dardenne brothers’ work, especially last year’s “The Kid with the Bike,” will likely fall for this one as well.
At the LA Swiss Consulate reception for the film prior to the film’s bow at LAFF, I interviewed Meier and Klein (watch the video below, aided by a French translator), who has the talent and smile to become a movie star. Adopt Films’ Jeff Lipsky plans to mount an Oscar campaign for supporting actor, screenplay, director and cinematography (Agnes Godard; a female DP has never been nominated). They’d be justified to push Seydoux for supporting actress as well. (Adopt has another foreign language contender, “Barbara,” submitted by Germany.)
“Sister” is Meier’s second feature. Her first, “Home,” was nominated for three Cesars and participated in Cannes’ L’Atelier du Festival (works in progress program) in 2006. Watch an exclusive clip of “Sister” and our interview below, in which she addresses the no-women-directors-in-competition-at-Cannes controversy:
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