‘Pieces of a Woman’ Director Kornél Mundruczó Reflects on ‘Place to Be,’ Teases Amy Adams Drama and ‘Elephant Man’ Revival (EXCLUSIVE)

variety.com:

Naman Ramachandran Cannes laureate Kornél Mundruczó is juggling multiple high-profile projects across different continents.

There’s the Ellen Burstyn-starrer “Place to Be,” currently filming in Australia, “At the Sea” featuring Amy Adams and now post-production, and a revival of his long-dormant “Elephant Man” adaptation that promises to transform the Victorian classic into a “colorful summer story.” The Hungarian filmmaker, who won the Fipresci prize at Cannes for “Delta,” and the festival’s Un Certain Regard prize for “White God” and gained further recognition with Venice winner and Oscar-nominated Netflix feature “Pieces of a Woman,” is clearly continuing to diversify his portfolio. “Place to Be,” Mundruczó reveals, was inspired by his desire to work with Ellen Burstyn again after their brief but impactful collaboration on “Pieces of a Woman.” “I’m so much of a fan of hers.

I love what she did in her entire career, how brave she was,” Mundruczó tells Variety. “She told me, ‘I never really played a romance.’ It stayed with me, and I felt that would be a very nice possibility to write a movie for her.” Written by Mundruczó’s frequent collaborator and multiple award-winning screenwriter Kata Wéber, the film follows Burstyn’s character as she spends a weekend traveling from Chicago to New York, encountering Taika Waititi’s character — a middle-aged man struggling with a midlife crisis — while juggling her own family dynamics.

The director describes the narrative as an journey that has evolved from its initial concept: “It started growing into this odyssey when she is spending one weekend from Chicago to New York and meets a middle-aged guy who is in real trouble with his midlife crisis, played by Taika Waititi.”.