ICYMI, Saoirse Ronan and Kate Winslet are starring in an upcoming lesbian romance film “Ammonite” and it’s coming out in September.
Due to the pandemic, nine other films from the canceled Cannes Film Festival will be joining “Ammonite” at the Deauville American Film Festival in September. Among these films is the much-awaited “Train to Busan” sequel “Peninsula” directed by Yeon Sang-ho.
“Ammonite” is the fictional portrayal of 19th century English paleontologist Mary Anning (played by Winslet) as she falls in love with a fellow fossil collector (played by Ronan).
While the film hasn’t been released yet, it already drew flak from Anning’s family who argued that there was no evidence of Anning being gay. However, Director Francis Lee responded to this on Twitter by saying that queer history has been “routinely ‘straightened’ throughout culture” and asked why it wouldn’t be okay to do the opposite especially since there was no evidence of a heterosexual relationship either.
Particularly a woman whose work and life were subjected to the worst aspects of patriarchy, class discrimination and gender imbalance…
— Francis Lee (@strawhousefilms) March 17, 2019
He told Variety that he was inspired by Anning’s story as a female paleontologist who struggled to have her scientific findings recognized in the patriarchal class-ridden British society. Moreover, Lee emphasized that the film is not a biography.
“I wanted to make her my Mary Anning. And I found all the research that there was about her [being gay]: virtually nothing. Because it isn’t a biography, I felt as long as I was respectful of her and the characters, that that was justifiable,” he said.
The lesbian romance film is set to premiere in the Deauville American Film Festival on France’s Normandy coast from Sept. 4 to 13.
Photo from the official Twitter account of “Ammonite”
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