Wes Anderson has mocked Donald Trump’s movie tariffs plan.
The filmmaker, 55, hit out at the U.S. president as rage continues to grow in the film industry about the effects slapping a 100 percent tariff on movies made abroad will have on the entertainment business.
Speaking at a Cannes Film Festival press conference for his new film ‘The Phoenician Scheme’, Wes drew laughter from the audience as he remarked: “Can you hold up the movie in customs? It doesn’t ship that way.”
He added: “The tariff is interesting because I’ve never heard of a 100 percent tariff before. I’m not an expert in that area of economics, but I feel that means he’s saying he’s going to take all the money.
“And then what do we get? So it’s complicated to me.”
The director was in Cannes for the premiere of ‘The Phoenician Scheme’, a dark three-hander shot partially in Germany and distributed by Focus Features.
His film stars 57-year-old Benicio del Toro, 36-year-old Michael Cera and 23-year-old Mia Threapleton. Mia, daughter of Kate Winslet, plays Sister Liesel, a chain-smoking nun estranged from Benicio’s character, a business magnate named Zsa-zsa Korda.
Michael joins Wes’ ensemble for the first time as a suspicious private tutor called Bjorn Lund.
Also appearing in the cast are Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Jeffrey Wright, Riz Ahmed, Scarlett Johansson, Mathieu Amalric, Rupert Friend and Hope Davis – all of whom have featured in Anderson’s previous films.
Wes said the idea for the film emerged from conversations with his co-writer Roman Coppola.
He added: “We were building this on the darkness of a certain kind of capitalist.
“But it took us somewhere else. We need a psychiatrist’s couch to really answer it properly, and even then I don’t know.”
He described the heart of the story as the father-daughter relationship between Benicio’s and Mia’s characters.
Wes also used his press conference on the film to signal future collaborations with Michael and 73-year-old Bill Murray, who was seated in the front row.
Shaking hands with Michael, the director said: “Let’s shake on it. Sometimes people say yes and they don’t really mean it later… I’m just saying, let’s get this on the record.”
