Karim Aïnouz directed Firebrand, based on a screenplay by Jessica Ashworth and Henrietta Ashworth from the 2013 novel Queen’s Gambit by Elizabeth Fremantle.
The story is about the royal relationship in blood-soaked Tudor England. Twice married, accomplished, and educated, Katherine Parr, played by Alicia Vikander. She reluctantly agrees to become the sixth wife of the tyrannical King Henry VIII, played by Jude Law.
Katherine’s decision to marry Henry carries immense personal risk, considering the fate of her predecessors, who were either divorced, beheaded, or dead. Her situation becomes even more perilous when Henry appoints her as regent, the nation’s ruler, during his absence for overseas battles, setting her on a treacherous path.
Amidst Henry’s court’s political intrigue, Katherine’s sympathies for the radical Protestant beliefs that have taken root in the kingdom become a cause for suspicion. The courtiers, fearing the threat to their power, conspire against her and sow seeds of doubt about her loyalty to the increasingly ailing and paranoid king.
Once Henry returns to England, his courtiers convince him to turn his fury on the nation’s radicals, including Katherine’s childhood friend Anne Askew, played by Erin Doherty. Anne becomes one of the many people convicted of treason and burned at the stake.
Horrified and privately grieving, Katherine finds herself under ever-increasing scrutiny and suspicion. Knowing that even a whisper of scandal might lead to her downfall, Katherine must unleash her own scheme to fight for survival.
Other supporting cast include Eddie Marsan, Simon Russell Beale and Sam Riley.
Aïnouz is an award-winning director and screenwriter. Firebrand is his first British/American film.
Written and directed by Justin Chon, who also stars in Blue Bayou, it is a moving and timely story of a uniquely American family fighting for their future. New Orleans tattoo artist Antonio LeBlanc, played by Justin Chon, is a devoted family man looking to build a better life for pregnant wife Kathy, played by Alicia Vikander, and precocious step-daughter Jessie, played by Sydney Kowalske.
(L to R) Actor Alicia Vikander, actor Sydney Kowalske and actor/writer/director Justin Chon on the set of BLUE BAYOU, a Focus Features release. Credit: Focus Features
But for an ex-con with a checkered past, opportunity can be hard to come by, meaning money is always tight, especially with a new baby on the way. Complicating matters is Kathy’s ex Ace, played by Mark O’Brien, a Louisiana cop. He wants to play a more prominent role in Jessie’s life — despite having abandoned the girl and her mother years earlier.
When a family spat unexpectedly leads to a grocery store confrontation with Ace and his racist partner, Denny, played by Emory Cohen, Antonio is arrested and transferred into the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Despite being in America since the age of three, the Korean-American adoptee — married to an American citizen — faces deportation from the only country he’s ever known as home. Trapped in a waking nightmare, Antonio and Kathy seek legal assistance to help fight the deportation order, only to discover that they have precious little hope of keeping their family together.
With Antonio facing an uncertain future, he finds an unlikely ally and source of support in a Vietnamese-American woman named Parker, played by Linh-Dan Pham, who also is at a place where she is struggling to come to terms with a difficult truth. Determined to remain near his loved ones, an increasingly desperate Antonio forces himself to confront his past, going to ever more extraordinary lengths to stay on American soil. But the painful secrets that come to light threaten to upend his relationships with Kathy and Jessie — even as Denny resolves to seal Antonio’s fate.
As Blue Bayou took shape, the character at the heart of the emotional tale became ever more apparent to Chon, as did the importance of the film’s Louisiana setting. “One thing that was very important to me as an Asian-American is how we’re portrayed in the media,” Chon says. “A big thing for me was the name, Antonio — seeing an Asian-American with that name was very peculiar. I placed it in the South because I’ve never seen Asians with Southern accents treated as just very naturally a fact of life.”
“I placed it in New Orleans specifically because there’s a huge enclave of Vietnamese people there, and one of my goals with this film was to have two adjacent Asian ethnicities in one film. This Korean adoptee Antonio learns what his culture could be like through this friendship with a Vietnamese woman. It’s his introduction into Asian culture. They’re countries that share a lot of similar war trauma.”
Although Chon had written, directed and starred in his previous films, he initially planned to cast an actor to play the pivotal role of Antonio. When it came time to cast the part, he found that the character was simply too close to his heart to be portrayed by anyone else. “The story was so important to me that I really wanted to be present to focus on the story and the filmmaking,” he says. “But I just got to a point where I’d lived with the story for so long and these people were so real to me that I started to get very nervous. I felt like if anyone was going to mess it up, I’d be the one to mess it up. I didn’t want to be in a position where if somebody didn’t quite give it the energy that I thought was necessary that I would be bummed out, you know?”
