Mexican Director Michel Franco on Jessica Chastain, Sex and ‘Dreams’ and Why Sarajevo Feels Like Home

The Mexican director-writer-producer Michel Franco has come to the Sarajevo Film Festival with every one of his nine features. He returns “because he feels like part of the family,” he said at the Variety Lounge, presented by the Sarajevo Film Festival and BH Telecom.

In particular, Franco loves the young and enthusiastic audience. He says, “It’s like a heaven for film and we need those spaces.”

This year, in addition to holding a public Masterclass, he presented his ninth feature, “Dreams,” starring Jessica Chastain alongside the talented Mexican ballet dancer Isaac Hernández as her younger lover. It marks his second feature with Chastain after “Memory” (2023). Chastain also served as an executive producer on “Dreams.”

Franco had a rough idea about what “Dreams” could be for several years. He told Jessica about it while shooting “Memory.” Both of them wanted to collaborate again, so the films were shot back to back.

Asked if he regarded himself as a political filmmaker, he noted, “My main goal is to make a good film on my own terms, in this case an intimate love story that goes to places that a love story shouldn’t go to. And represents something bigger because of where it’s set.”

The imbalance in the relationship between the wealthy philanthropist played by Chastain and the much younger dancer (and illegal immigrant) portrayed by Hernández may certainly be read as a metaphor. Franco says, “I’ve always been worried and dissatisfied with the power relationship between Mexico and the U.S.”

There are many intimate scenes in “Dreams.” “The most important thing,” says Franco, “is that every intimate scene is there for a reason and pushes the story further… The film couldn’t be complete without them.”

“Dreams” will have a U.S. release through Greenwich Entertainment in the first quarter of 2026.