Joachim Trier on his new award-winning film, ‘Sentimental Value’

0:12Hello and welcome to the Monaco Weekly. For today's show, I had the pleasure to interview Joaquin Trier about his new film, The Emotional and Wonderful, Sentimental Value, a poignant story about reconciliation, featuring Stellan Skarsgård and Renate Reinsven. The film won the Grand Prix at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival and it's set to be the star of this awards season. Let's hear it from Joaquin.

0:43Joaquin Trier, what a pleasure talking to you big fan of your work and a massive fan of sentimental value as well my first question to you is like you are a father of two girls now, right? some of members of your family worked in the film industry your grandfather tell us a bit more about the making of this film was it a bit personal to you? I know it's not related to your story but there's a few elements here and there you becoming a father your family involvement as well? I think you're on to something. I'm the kind of filmmaker who sit down and try to do a film about where I am in life. Every time I make a movie, I start from scratch with Eskil Fucht, my co-writer.

1:22And this time we realized that we were in a moment in our lives when we both have children. Eskil and I have two kids each. Our parents are still around. We're sensing how fast time flies. and then we had another idea which was kind of like let's talk about two sisters and how come siblings feel so different from each other even though they grew up in the same family and then a father character came in and then suddenly this started developing and we realized that we know a lot about film and film life as you mentioned my grandfather was a filmmaker my parents worked with films I grew up on film sets I don't know how to get out of that at all That's my life, and I'm very grateful for being allowed to make them.

2:06But we didn't necessarily start out thinking we would make a film about film people. We wanted, and still do, feel that it's primarily a family story. I felt that, and it's not just the story of a daughter and the father, but about the sisters as well, the scene where they embrace towards the end of the film. It's just so pure and beautiful in a way, right? Oh, thank you. So here's another thing that motivated this film, was that I had a great collaboration with Renata Reinsven, the actor in The Worst Person in the World, and I really wanted to work with her again. She has some amazing capacity for both levity and humor, but also real deep dramatic work.

2:46And as I'd gotten to know her even better since we already made the film together, I felt that there was something to explore in this character of Nora, this kind of workaholic actress who's very successful but somehow finds it hard to create a sense of home or connectedness so then we had to find a sister you know to to kind of match her and also match Renata as an actor and we found a wonderful actor called Inga Ipsdoter Lilleos it was through casting we we met so many people and finally Inga arrived and it's like she can't go wrong everything she does is truthful and as a director it's just wonderful she has this grounded quality which which completely I think fits for Agnes the younger sister because you know the film has these two spaces in the film we see the National Theatre where Nora the older sister works which is the place of imagination it's like the left part of the brain and then And Agnes goes to the National Archive where all the facts are stored in our society and researches family history and the scene in the film.

3:55And that's kind of the right brain. And between these sisters and between these places of societal understanding of who we are in terms of narrative, I think there's a space for the family in the middle. And even the character of Gustav Dedad, played by Stellan Skarsgård, it's interesting you could have made him super unlikable in a way. But no, there's a lot of tenderness in the film. I saw you mention this in an interview, and it's very true. Of course, he was not perfect at all, but there's tenderness, right? I think so. I mean, at the beginning of the film, I guess the father character, this director, Gustav Borg, who hasn't made a film for 15 years, still thinks he's the king of the world, is a kind of patriarchal bit of an asshole, really.

4:37But since we cast Dylan Skarsgård, which was purposefully done also because he's such a warm, sympathetic man, And we hopefully created a more three-dimensional character with more nuance. It's a film about reconciliation, isn't it? So it's also about understanding that inside every difficult parent, there is also perhaps, as in this case, a wounded child on some level. And to grapple with that, what is reconciliation in the family? I didn't want to make a film that has sort of cheap solutions where, oh, you talk about it and it's all fine. I don't think that's how life works. But I think that to try to come to a more peaceful place with what was and what hasn't been is important.

5:18And to avoid this kind of cheap solutions, as you're saying, even the character of Elle Fanning, you know, she plays quite sweetly as well, this Hollywood star. Again, there's no cliché in there. She's not like this crazy diva, demanding. You know, it's quite the opposite in a way, right? Yeah, but my experience is that people from all walks of life can be really cool and nice. And, you know, so, yeah, Elle is a wonderful actor. I'm so glad that she came to Norway and did this with us. But, yeah, you're right. She has Rachel Kemp, her character, who plays this kind of Hollywood star and comes to Norway to play in Gustav Borg's film.

5:51And suddenly is dropped right in the middle of this family drama where she's actually understanding more and more that she's kind of playing his daughter, which creates also humor. I think Elle did that wonderfully in terms of not creating kind of a cliche parody of the American starlet. I think you're absolutely right. She is that star in a good way. I mean, she's a celebrity and she knows that thing in her life. But Elle also has a great capacity for the craft of acting. I'm really impressed with her. The funny thing about Elle, you know, is that she's quite young, but she's acted since she was a child.

6:25So she has the experience of a 40-year-old, even though she's barely 30. Yeah, exactly. And I love that you brought, you know, this American actress out to a Norwegian context as well. I think that's very cool. instead of the opposite. It's always like, oh, the European or South American director go into the US, but now it's actually the opposite. That's quite nice. Yeah, I guess, I mean, maybe that's a reflection of the fact that the film world is changing, and maybe Hollywood is not necessarily the epicenter anymore. It's one of the epicenters. I think we have several places in the world. You see it in the South Korean boom.

7:01You see it in the Scandinavian thing that's been going on with crime fiction, but also now with maybe more personal films. Like Dag Johan Haugerud, the Norwegian director, won the Golden Bear in Berlin this year. Ruben Öztlund has made some wonderful films that really made a splash around the whole world. And, you know, I think there's stuff coming out in the Nordic countries at the moment. And I'm proud to be allowed to be a part of that. And even the Norwegian scene is quite hot at the moment, if I can say. There's been a lot of, like, pieces about it. True. You feel proud of that. Yeah, well, I've got to be cautious.

7:33I'm not really into the national thing. I care more about, you know, cinema world as a whole. And I've been fortunate enough to educate myself here in London. This is where I went to film school, National Film and TV School. And also I work with collaborators from around the world, even behind the camera on this one, people from several countries. But I will say this. The wonderful thing about Nordic film and the boom, more than that, you know, waving the flag like a football team, it's about seeing that personal cinema is being allowed to be made financially. and that there's so actually the and this could encourage other governments to really support the arts i think that's the thing i come out of a generation where the cultural minister kind of 15 20 years ago really supported cinema it's less so now so we're working politically at home as well but it created generations that that had the faith that we could actually make a living off of doing more personal work.

8:25And if anything, at this moment, I think we need to take art seriously. We need in complicated times in society and in the world globally to have reflections of stories on a deeper level, try to communicate, create empathy, meet in cinemas, meet in theaters, meet in books, understand on a deeper level that we are more alike than different. And I think art can be a place for those kinds of reconciliations, I hope. And I feel people are craving now the public personal stories as well in the cinema, because sometimes, you know, I have nothing against a big blockbuster. They can be super fun. But also when studios keep rehashing the same stories, you look even at the numbers, actually.

9:12Some people, some films, they don't do so well, because maybe there's people getting tired. Yeah, it's always funny in society, isn't it, how things have counter movements and the things are paradoxical and we've been through a big wave of superhero movies and we've been through certain formulas that and people want development and forward momentum they want change they want to see something new originality shouldn't be underestimated and I think at the moment you know when you've had a lot of mechanically made bread you suddenly want something that's baked with some hands in the dough you want perhaps at the moment there's this yearning but you know what i mean this is this sense that you want the human touch and i think we're worth we're living in a very fragmented isolating reality at the moment we're all talking about our friends but not seeing them but like writing a message or we're social media is the strange paradox of having a lot of attention to each other but maybe not seeing each other there's a lot of strange things going on.

10:16So, of course, humans are adaptable, but we're also resistance. We have resistancy. So we're yearning for more contact, I feel. I had a wonderful experience. Last night, I was in a room with more than 2 ,000 people, you know, at the London Film Festival and Royal Festival Hall. A really big crowd had turned up for our film. I come from Norway, you know. I don't, even though our films have traveled now, several of them through the years, every time it keeps surprising me in a beautiful way that people really show up they want to be together in the cinema it's an event it's a kick i love it too i go to the movies it's a place you can sit in the darkness alone among strangers and feel you're part of a group somehow and connected with that you know it's a unanimous experience and i i don't know i i'm getting a bit on my soapbox hair about cinema but i really feel it i think that that we're yearning for that contact I agree 100%.

11:11And finally, I just want to say, of course, sentimental value is connecting with people. I mean, there's even a joke, of course, in Cannes, it was the Joaquin Trier summer, but I think it's going to be the Joaquin Trier autumn winter as well. I'm not joking. Thank you, man. I mean, if that means, if nothing else, if that means that people will watch this film that we're so proud of, me and my gang, then I will take that. Thank you. Thank you very much, Joaquin. Sentimental Value is out in UK cinemas on the 26th of December and is also out in other parts of the world. The show was edited by Mariella Bevan and I am Fernando Augusto Pacheco.

11:48Thank you for listening.