“It’s about a complete bunch of issues,” Mexican filmmaker Alonso Ruizpalacios says when quizzed with reference to his newest characteristic, La Cocina, debuting this night on the Berlin Movie Competition. “In equal elements, it explores the subject of labor, the American dream, the failure of the American dream, and abortion rights. That’s a very powerful query as a director.” 

Ruizpalacios has some extent. Starring Rooney Mara and shot in a crisp digital black-and-white, La Cocina is difficult to outline. Operating simply in need of two-and-a-half hours, the pic is a posh and formally formidable story, maybe finest described as a tragicomedy, set in a deathly busy New York Metropolis restaurant referred to as The Grill. 

The movie opens in the course of the lunch rush at The Grill, the place, to the fury of the restaurant administration, cash has gone lacking from the until. In consequence, all of the undocumented cooks are actually topic to a rouge investigation and Pedro (Raúl Briones) is the prime suspect. Pedro is a dreamer and one of many kitchen’s largest characters. He’s additionally in love with Julia (Mara), an American waitress who refuses to decide to their relationship. However when Rashid, The Grill´s proprietor, guarantees to assist Pedro along with his immigration papers, he sees a future for himself with Julia within the U.S. However when an surprising revelation about Julia is revealed, Pedro spirals, inflicting an explosion within the kitchen.

Ruizpalacios, finest recognized for his 2014 debut Gueros, says La Cocina was impressed by his time working at a restaurant he describes as a “horrible vacationer lure” referred to as the Rainforest Cafe throughout his time as a scholar in London. 

“In these forms of locations, you meet all types of individuals from all corners of the world that you’d by no means actually meet outdoors work,” Ruizpalacios says of his curiosity within the catering enterprise. “Kitchens turn into a microcosm of how the world works. A caste system develops. And what attracts me to that subject material is how one survives a spot like that. And the one manner is thru friendship and camaraderie.” 

La Cocina marks Mara’s first characteristic appearing credit score since 2022’s Oscar-nominated Ladies Speaking. The pic can be one in all solely three films she’s accomplished since 2021, following a prolific spell that noticed her in 10 films between 2015 and 2017. 

“I beloved Gueros, and Alonso despatched me the script and this kind of temper board and a letter,” Mara recollects. “I get despatched issues like that so much, and most of them are unhealthy. You possibly can normally inform they’re a template, and also you’re just like the third particular person to obtain it. However Alonso’s was so private and poetic. I actually wished to work with him.” 

Ruizpalacios tells us he was equally enthusiastic about collaborating with Mara and first observed her distinctive display screen presence throughout a memorable journey to the cinema in 2011, the place he caught David Fincher’s The Lady with the Dragon Tattoo. Mara stars alongside Daniel Craig, Stellan Skarsgård, and Robin Wright within the thriller. 

“I began writing, and I started picturing her partly due to the fierceness in that movie,” Ruizpalacios says. “After which I noticed Carol. She was simply so good on the subtext in that movie. She was so frail and will talk a lot with only a few phrases. She’s a woman of few phrases. However she’s actually intense, and I wanted that for this character.” 

La Cocina was largely shot on a studio set in Mexico, the place Mara mentioned the manufacturing constructed its “extremely reasonable again of home kitchen.” 

“I had shot a couple of days in Mexico earlier than on a Terrence Malick factor, however I had by no means actually made a movie there earlier than,” Mara says. “I don’t communicate Spanish very nicely, however I can perceive plenty of it. Nevertheless it was simply the very best assortment of individuals ever. It’s nice to be in a distinct nation working.” 

The expertise of a shoot, Mara continues, is what she thinks about most when deciding which tasks to tackle.  

“Fairly early on, I had some very adverse experiences. After working with David Fincher, I noticed the director is every little thing. That’s who I observe. That’s my North Star,” she says. 

“It’s all about whether or not the expertise might be good. It’s such a crapshoot, even with the very best administrators, if one thing goes to be good and resonate with individuals. So I don’t take into consideration that. To me, it’s concerning the expertise as a result of that’s what I’ll must take with me. It’s my time and my life.” 

La Cocina is Ruizpalacios’s fourth characteristic and, curiously, his fourth time opening a movie at Berlin. The movie screens in competitors tonight at Berlin. Hanway is dealing with gross sales. 

“I fought to open in Berlin,” Ruizpalacios says of his determination to carry the movie to the German capital. “Not like Cannes or Venice, the screenings in Berlin are bought to basic audiences. So it has a really completely different really feel.”

Regardless of his worldwide pageant pedigree and Mara aboard, Ruizpalacios says he nonetheless struggled to piece financing collectively for the pic. 

“I had so many f***ing Hollywood conferences. Each single studio, each platform, they usually mentioned, ‘We like it, nevertheless it’s only a bit too dangerous,’” Ruizpalacios explains. 

The prospect of capturing in black and white, he recollects, “actually scared lots of people,” together with the difficult political subject material. 

“However that’s the movie,” he exclaims. “So we didn’t budge, and fortuitously, I’ve fantastic producers right here in Mexico which have my again. After which, lastly, Fifth Season got here alongside, they usually mentioned, we consider on this film.”

Whereas Mara has been rare onscreen of late, she was set to have a comparatively buzzy 2024, starring reverse her accomplice Joaquin Phoenix in Oscar-nominated Polish filmmaker Pawel Pawlikowski’s subsequent characteristic, The Island. Nonetheless, we first reported final Could that the pic was shut down on the eleventh hour as a result of impending SAG strike. Little or no has been heard concerning the mission since. 

“Me, Joaquin, and Pawel nonetheless have hope that we are going to make it,” Mara says of the movie. “We simply don’t know when that might be. It doesn’t seem like that can occur this yr. However we’re all dedicated to the mission.”

There have additionally been questions concerning the Audrey Hepburn biopic Mara had set as much as produce and star in at Apple since Name Me By Your Title filmmaker Luca Guadagnino, who had been connected to direct, revealed in an viewers Q&A in London that he was now not engaged on the mission. 

“The mission isn’t fully useless,” Mara says of the Hepburn biopic. “Luca is now not going to be directing it, however the mission remains to be very a lot alive.

She provides: “I can’t say greater than that proper now.”

La Cocina screens this night on the Berlinale Palast within the German capital.

The Berlin Movie Competition runs February 15-25.