Telluride: ‘Emilia Perez’ lands stateside with packed screenings and loud buzz

This year’s Telluride Film Festival lineup was not short on conversation starters. Films like Sean Baker’s “Anora,” RaMell Ross’s “Nickel Boys,” and Ali Abbasi’s “The Apprentice” were frequently discussed in screening queues, in the theater seats before the shows began, and on the town’s free gondola transportation. But Netflix’s “Emilia Perez” stood out among the titles as the one film, at least anecdotally, on everyone’s list. The film’s Sunday screening at the Werner Herzog Theater, the largest venue at the festival with a capacity of 650, hundreds of festival attendees had to be turned away at the door. 

They missed a film that almost defies description, expectations, or comparisons – a big swing combining several elements to create an emotional and audacious movie that left the many fortunate enough to get a seat singing its praises following the screening. Written and directed by Jacques Audiard, who received one of the Telluride Film Festival Silver Medallions for cinematic achievement this year, and starring Zoe Saldana, Karla Sofia Gascon, Selena Gomez, and Adriana Paz, “Emilia Perez” tells the story of Rita (Saldana), a high-powered but disillusioned lawyer, who takes on an unexpected assignment: helping a Mexican cartel leader (Gascon) fake their death and undergo sex-reassignment operations. Four years later, the cartel leader – now known as Emilia Perez – returns to Rita’s life to ask for help in reuniting with her wife, Jessi (Gomez), and their children. The twist is that “Emilia Perez” blends several genres – drama, comedy, action thriller, and musical – to tell its story.

“It felt fresh, important, audacious, provocative, and also I felt like I was getting to go back home, because I grew up dancing on stage, and I thought I was never going to be able to do that again,” Saldana said after the screening on Sunday,. “So it felt like it was a gift that kept on giving.”

The film’s four main actresses shared the best actress prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, with Gascon (who is a standout as the title character) becoming the first trans actress to receive the Cannes honor. “Women together — that’s something we wanted to honor when we made this award,” this year’s Cannes jury president Greta Gerwig said at the gala ceremony in May. “Each of them is a standout, but together transcendent.”

“This is a community job, you can’t do cinema just by yourself,” Paz said following Sunday’s screening. “So it’s about teamwork, and every person on the team is so important. So I feel so honored to be part of this team and be able to win that amazing and special award. I think that maybe because of the award, people will be more curious about the film. Because I’ve heard people say, like, ‘Oh, it’s a musical. I don’t know…’ Maybe they were doubting it. But the attention can make people more curious about the movie. ‘Okay, maybe we should see this.’ I feel so honored, girls, to be with you, and thank you everybody for the work that we have done.”

Netflix picked up “Emilia Perez” out of the Cannes Film Festival and has set the feature for a limited theatrical release on November 1 before it arrives on the streaming platform on November 13. It’s a heavy awards contender with the potential for several Oscar nominations, including a historic Best Actress nomination for Gascon (who would be the first trans actress nominated in the category), first acting nominations for Saldana and Gomez (both of whom would likely wind up in the Best Supporting Actress category), first-time writing and directing nominations for Audiard (who is also a producer), and original song – where Gomez is also in contention for her standout track “Mi Camino,” which she worked on with singer-songwriter Camille and composer Clément Ducol, the duo who wrote the 16 original songs that appear in the film.

“It was actually a totally different song. It had a bit more of a rough sound to it. And throughout working with Camille on the song intimately, it became almost like a ballad,” Gomez said of the track on Sunday. “It was more of a story about a woman and phases of life that she goes through. And it just was beautiful. I was in a studio for hours and hours, and it was just so much fun, but also [challenging] not trying to sing the way that I would normally sing. I had to, in my mind, think, ‘Okay, this is the limit I could reach within my character.’ And it was really therapeutic. And I thought it was so beautifully done. I thought it was very important to show her and her true form, just wanting to be who she is.”

“Emilia Perez” will next hit the Toronto International Film Festival, before heading down to New York Film Festival later this month. Its cast is in it for the long haul and expected to appear together again at both fests and many future events throughout awards season. Not that they seem to mind considering the film itself and the camaraderie they built as an ensemble during the shoot.

“I just stayed curious last summer every day and everything they tossed at me, I was just like, ‘Okay,’ and it led us here,” Saldana said on Sunday. “Look at the result.”