Six years after his last film, Mike Leigh (Mr. Turner, Happy-Go-Lucky) returns to directing with Hard Truths. The British director once again features actress Marianne Jean-Baptiste (Secrets and Lies) in a story about grief and the ways of coping with it in the contemporary world. Pansy is an angry woman who spends her days arguing with everyone around her: from her husband and son to her dentist and the cashier at the supermarket. Her physical and mental pain has led her to a state of bitterness and frustration, and the only person who seems to understand her is her sister Chantelle. From a place of compassion and with a very acidic comic tone, Leigh offers a portrait of a multi-layered person, showing the greys in Pansy's existence and urging us to find empathy for those who hinder her.
Mike Leigh
Born in Brocket Hall (UK) in 1943, he trained at Camberwell College of Art and the London Film School. In the 1960s he worked at the BBC and Channel 4. In 1971 he began a career that would have its first international success with ‘High Hopes’, winner of the Fipresci Award at Venice and his first appearance in the Official Section at Valladolid, where he competed again in 1997 with ‘Career Girls’ (Silver Spike) and received the Honorary Spike in 2000, when he was dedicated a retrospective and a monograph in Valladolid. He has competed five times at Cannes, where he won the Palme d'Or in 1996 for ‘Secrets & Lies’, as well as the prize for best director in 1993 for ‘Naked’. In 2004 he won the Golden Lion in Venice for ‘Vera Drake’ and in 2008 he competed in Berlin with ‘Happy-Go-Lucky’. He has won three Bafta Awards, as well as the British Academy's highest recognition, the Bafta Fellowship. He has been nominated for an Oscar for Best Screenplay five times and for Best Director twice. In 2024, he premiered ‘Hard Truths’ in competition at the San Sebastian Festival.
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