A world premiere at the 2016 Cannes International Film Festival, LOVING is the new film from acclaimed writer and director Jeff Nichols.
LOVING is a true story about the legal battle fought by a mixed race couple to have their marriage accepted in 1950s America. It is an extraordinary film that showcases how real people are affected by politics and the opinions of others.
A world premiere at the 69th Cannes Film Festival, LOVING is the new film from acclaimed writer and director Jeff Nichols starring Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga. Loving retraces the story of an interracial couple who was forced into exile after marrying in Virginia in 1958 in violation of State law. Their legal battle lasted for nine long years and it is a powerful tale of the fight for the true love.
The couple had grown up in Central Point, a small town in Virginia that was more integrated than surrounding areas in the American South. Yet it was the state of Virginia, where they were making their home and starting a family, that first jailed and then banished them.
Richard and Mildred relocated with their children to the inner city of Washington, D.C. While relatives made them feel welcome there, the more urban environment did not feel like home to them. Ultimately, the pull of their roots in Virginia would spur Mildred to try to find a way back.
Their civil rights case, Loving v. Virginia, went all the way to the Supreme Court, which in 1967 reaffirmed the very foundation of the right to marry. Richard and Mildred returned home and their love story has become an inspiration to couples ever since.
LOVING is an extraordinary film. The truthfulness of love is evident throughout the storyline as well as are the social and political repercussions of what was meant to be an interracial couple in 1950s America. At the press-conference in Cannes, Jeff Nicols has affirmed that the best way to approach the questions of race and equality is through telling the story of two people.
Talking about the political ideas without really seeing them attached to people, would have just been a waste of time. Political ideas, without being attached to people are just that, the political ideas. What people forget in leading all these heated political debates is that we, the people are in the center of these stories.
LOVING: the most pure love story
Image Credit : Mathilde Petit / FDC
According to the cast, it was very special working on film because of how quiet and meditative and simple things were on the set. The guiding principle was the truth, the truth about the love and struggle. There is something very simple to the truth.
“The court case was fascinating, how the lawyers have brought this case to the supreme court could make a movie in itself, but I did not want to make that movie. I did not want to make a court room drama. I wanted to make a movie about two people in love and fortunately Richard and Mildred provided the most perfect version of that story. I truly believe that this one of the most pure love stories in the American history ” said Nicols.
Film has received a wonderful reception in front of the critics and the international press in Cannes and is seen as one of the frontrunners for the award.