Directors Kenneth Branagh, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Aaron Sorkin on Making Their Films Personal

variety.com:

Zoe Hewitt Art is unlike other media in that it requires its creators to share parts of themselves as they’re likewise primed for the supremely subjective criticism that follows.

After all, no dentist is asked to soliloquize about how a tooth extraction reflects life choices. The directors of three of this year’s potential best picture contenders account for their recent work in the most personal of ways.“Belfast” writer and director Kenneth Branagh, who based the film loosely on his family’s experiences in 1960s Ireland, doesn’t call the film strictly autobiographical yet the connection is undeniable. “In leaving Belfast at nine years old, my heart was broken,” he says. “I made this film to try to put it back together.” Experiencing such profound violence at a young age was transformative. “As a legacy in personality, I think it has made me more guarded, protected and controlling than I felt myself naturally to be.”While actors often talk of vulnerability and authenticity in their work, casting Jude Hill (Buddy) as his on-screen avatar further ensured Branagh couldn’t avoid seeing some version of himself return to Belfast.But, the film goes beyond a personal moment of nostalgia while inviting the audience deeper.

It’s to “taste again what it’s like to drop the cynicism of our adult worldliness and experience life with a greater sense of wonder, gratitude and fun,” he says.As for what Branagh learned about himself, he says, “‘Belfast’ for me, and the beauty of the times before the troubles, is a state of mind.

At best, even in all its human frailty, a state of bliss.”It isn’t just the autobiographical-leaning that exposes life’s truths.