Lizzie (Michelle Williams), forty, neither poor nor rich, works in a school of arts of Portland, directed by her mother, and sculpts.
As the opening of her exhibition approaches, when she has to finish her works, a lot of worries come to hinder her creative process.
Her starving cat, an injured pigeon she has to care for, a boiler that breaks down, and a depressed brother who worries her... Lizzie has to spend sleepless nights catching up on sculpting.
"It's really a collaboration between us," the director told AFP.
"Even though the dialogues have been written, she wears a costume, etc., there is always something that happens with her that is really natural and surprising".
Taciturn and worried, Lizzie seems physically affected by the problems that fall on her.
“Michelle came out of this film changed and it was very interesting for me to see her transform,” added the director.
Intimate and without emphasis, emphasizing the small details of existence in a fairly closed circle of artists, "Showing up" met with a rather shy reception in Cannes, where it was screened on the last day of competition on Friday. .
Still a teacher, Kelly Reichardt insisted that she "loves to give lessons", and while judging "relevant" the question of the place of women in cinema, she admitted "not wanting to sulk her pleasure and seem ungrateful" as she lives "a moment of grace" at 58 years old.
American director Kelly Reichardt (c) and the film crew on the Cannes Film Festival red carpet before the screening of "Showing Up", May 27, 2022 Valery HACHE AFP
The previous week, she was presented with the Carrosse d'Or during the Directors' Fortnight, an award from the Society of Film Directors which "pays tribute to a filmmaker who has marked the history of cinema, through his audacity, his requirement and his intransigence in the staging".
© 2022 AFP