Source : INDIA TODAY NEWS
Actor Robert Pattinson received a nearly eight-minute standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival on Saturday as his much-anticipated film Primetime premiered inside Sala Grande. The A24 film, directed by Lance Oppenheim, had its world premiere at the festival, with Pattinson playing To Catch a Predator host Chris Hansen.
The audience responded enthusiastically to the film, with the packed theatre erupting into an electric standing ovation that lasted nearly eight minutes. The entire cast joined Oppenheim and Pattinson for the premiere, which also drew several notable Hollywood auteurs and stars.
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A few rows behind the film’s creative team were Ari Aster, Chloe Zhao, Mona Fastvold and Amanda Seyfried, who reportedly snuck into the theatre after the lights went down before the premiere. At one point, Aster was among a group of attendees who began chanting, “Lance! Lance! Lance! Lance!” in honour of Oppenheim.
Pattinson also shared a sweet moment with his partner, Suki Waterhouse, during the premiere. Shortly before the ovation, the actor turned around to greet Waterhouse with a kiss after she had been enthusiastically cheering for the film.
Primetime was among the most sought-after tickets of the first weekend at this year’s festival. In the film, Pattinson plays Chris Hansen, the host of To Catch a Predator, who repeatedly uttered the phrase after alleged pedophiles were confronted by camera crews.
In his official director’s statement for Venice, Oppenheim said he set out to make “an institutional portrait of To Catch a Predator at the height of its success.” The filmmaker’s previous works include the series Ren Faire and films Spermworld and Some Kind of Heaven.
“I wanted to trace the disparate ambitions of people who existed inside this apparatus — a journalistic crusader, a mercenary TV producer and a wide-eyed Hollywood dreamer — converging into a moment of crisis. And I liked the idea of revisiting the media culture of the early 2000s, before the news landscape fractured, when a ‘primetime’ slot felt like a matter of life or death. For some, it was,” the director said.
For the film, Oppenheim assembled a cast to star opposite Pattinson that includes Merritt Wever, Skyler Gisondo, Phoebe Bridgers and Bokeem Woodbine. Interestingly, Oppenheim also directed Bridgers’ recently released music video, Lost Boys, the lead single from her new album Lost Weekend. During the film’s standing ovation, after the audience began chanting “Lance! Lance! Lance! Lance!” in honour of Oppenheim, they turned their attention to Bridgers, chanting, “Phoebe! Phoebe! Phoebe!”
Primetime is loosely adapted by first-time screenwriter Ajon Singh from an Esquire article by Luke Dittrich. The film dramatises the darkest year of Hansen’s tenure on To Catch a Predator.
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SOURCE :- TIMES OF INDIA
