Mexican auteur Michel Franco said he made “Dreams” “as brutal and cruel as necessary” because “most movies play it safe,” a stance he shared during an interview at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival after an early-morning screening of the drama starring Jessica Chastain and ballet dancer Isaac Hernández. The film arrived in the Czech spa town still seeking a U.S. distributor, four months after competing for the Golden Bear at Berlin, where it drew both ovations and walkouts.
Set between Mexico City and San Francisco, “Dreams” follows Jennifer, a philanthropy-minded heiress, and Fernando, a migrant whose perilous desert crossing—shown in the opening minutes—upends her carefully curated life. Franco said the violence embedded in their relationship was “unavoidable” once he committed to exploring power imbalances, adding that Chastain welcomed playing a character “meant to disturb rather than comfort.”
Festival coverage noted how the film depicts deportation raids and border detentions rarely shown onscreen, framing the couple’s romance as a critique of charity that masks class guilt. Ballet sequences shot chronologically allowed Hernández to “discover the character’s injuries in real time,” according to Franco, who eschewed rehearsals to preserve spontaneity.
Reaction has been sharply divided: a Guardian review praised Chastain’s “hypnotic” turn while warning that the climax “beckons viewers toward sensational unhappiness,” whereas other critics dismissed the film as affectless despite its ferocity. Franco countered that polarization proves audiences still hunger for cinema “willing to risk offending,” insisting he will not soften future projects for mainstream appeal.
International rights were picked up by Greenwich Entertainment this spring, and programmers in Toronto and New York are now considering fall slots that could position “Dreams” for an awards-season run should the North American deal close in time.
