Not even the Covid-19 pandemic has stopped the 400,000 people who have watched the film across Mexican theatres during these first weeks. Premiering in Europe at La Biennale Di Venezia a few weeks ago, the film won the Grand Jury Prize and has recently won the Impact Award at the Stockholm International Film Festival, meaning a 1,000,000 SEK (over $100,000) cash prize, as well as the award itself, designed by Ai Weiwei.
New Order is Michel Franco’s sixth feature film. Since he released After Lucia (Después de Lucía), all of his movies have been awarded at Cannes Film Festival, including the prize Un Certain Regard in 2012. His work speaks about inequality and abuse of power, but until today, it’s always been with an intimate tone. Now he wanted to make a film that analyses conflict on a bigger scale. In addition, the dystopian approach and the dissatisfied society portrayed in the film resonate with the current events, which takes the debate further than Mexico. We caught up in a Zoom call with Michel the night before he received the Impact Award to discuss injustice, film festivals and fuelling controversy to ignite public debate.