World
Rebecca Lenkiewicz on Moving From Writing to Directing With ‘Hot Milk’: ‘I’d Been Feeling a Sadness in Giving Scripts Away’
There are numerous first time directors at this year’s Berlinale, but few come with the sort of indie film credits on Rebecca Lenkiewicz‘s resume.
The British playwright and screenwriter had worked on the script for Pawel Pawlikowski’s Oscar-winning “Ida” alongside the director, on “Disobedience” with Sebastián Lelio and on “Colette” with Wash Westmoreland, before going it alone to turn Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey’s book about their industry-shaking Harvey Weinstein expose into the script that would become Maria Schrader’s “She Said” in 2022.
But with “Hot Milk,” which bowed at the Palaste on Friday, she moved closer to the camera and made it her directorial debut. Adapted (by Lenkiewicz) from Deborah Levy’s book and shot in Greece, the story is set under the hot Spanish summer and follows Sofia, a young woman (Emma Mackey) in a co-dependent relationship with her wheelchair-bound mother Rose (Fiona Shaw) as the two travel to a sun-soaked seaside town to meet an enigmatic healer (Vincent Perez) who may just have a miracle cure. But while there, Sofia meets the free-spirited yet damaged Ingrid (Vicky Krieps) and find herself falling wildly in love. “It’s incredibly intense,” notes Lenkiewicz. “And then she goes to Greece to see her father, who she hasn’t seen for years and it all just kind of explodes.”
Speaking to Variety, the writer-turned-writer/director discusses why it felt like the right time to make the leap and being “blessed” with a “triptych of women” on screen.
Am I right in thinking that you were originally asked to adapt the book ‘Hot Milk’ before you came on board as director as well?
Actually, I went into the meeting and, I hadn’t really planned to say this, but I said I would adapt it if I could direct it. Christine Langan took that in. I’d been feeling for a long time a sadness in giving scripts away. And especially with this book, it felt incredibly female. I could see it. I could feel it. So I just really wanted to do it. I left that with Christine and she came back to me and said: ‘Yeah, let’s try.’
Was it something particular about ‘Hot Milk’ or simply that it was the time to direct?
I think it was both. But I think it was also how fragile and robust the female heroine was — and I felt I could relay that well. I connected to each of the characters. I could also see the casting. So I just felt very strongly that I wanted it to stay with me.
And it wasn’t anything to that you got to shoot in the sunshine in Greece?
No. Ha! Greece was amazing, but it was 45 degrees (113F). The Greek team sort of said to us, you can’t shoot in August, it’s crazy. And we thought, perhaps they’re being a bit dramatic. And we went there and there was wildfires. But it was the most incredible time and the most incredible place to shoot.
Were you hands on with the casting? You’ve got a mighty trio in Emma Mackey, Vicky Kreips and Fiona Shaw.
With that triptych of women I’m so blessed. They’re just amazing actresses and incredible women on set. And each of them are quite different actresses. So it was interesting to see the different processes coming together.
So how was your first experience directing?
It was wonderful. I loved it. But only because everyone around me was so incredibly supportive. Technically, they helped me. I had a brilliant relationship with Christopher Blauvelt, the cinematographer. The producers guided me beforehand — Christine Langan and Kate Glover were amazing. I just had this body of artists and crew who were just so encouraging and supportive. I knew what I wanted to make and I could see it and feel it and hear it. So everyone was on board with that.
Did it give you any newfound respect for directing? I spoken to a lot of actors who have gone behind the camera and a lot of them said that they came of it realising just how much the director has on their plate.
It did. Just the amount of responsibility, that you’re carrying from day one to the end, is huge. Vincent Perez is a brilliant director and an actor in our film. On the last day of the shoot, I said ‘We’re finished.’ And he said, ‘No, you haven’t finished.’ But it’s true — there’s so many processes of the edit. And now we’ve got the birth to come.
Saakashvili was found guilty of illegal border crossing and given a second prison sentence of four and a half years on Monday, in addition to his existing sentence on charges of abuse of power and embezzlement.
A Georgian court sentenced former President Mikheil Saakashvili to another prison term on Monday, extending his imprisonment time to 12 and a half years.
Saakashvili, who served as Georgia’s president from 2004-2013, had previously been sentenced on charges of abuse of power and embezzlement that he and his defence have rejected as politically motivated.
Judge Badri Kochlamazashvili sentenced the 57-year-old ex-president to an extra four years and six months on charges of illegal border crossing, adding time to his existing sentence.
Speaking by videoconference, Saakashvili dismissed the verdict as an “absolutely illegal, unjust sentencing of me for crimes I have not committed.”
“They want to annihilate me in prison,” he said. “But no matter what, I will fight till the end,” he vowed.
According to his lawyer, Beka Basilaia, Monday’s verdict “again showed that Saakashvili is a political prisoner.”
Saakashvili, a controversial reformist
Saakashvili is also accused of repressing demonstrators who claimed that his fervour had turned into dictatorship.
The former president, who led the country in a more pro-Western direction, led the so-called Rose Revolution protests in 2003 that drove his predecessor out of office and enacted a series of ambitious reforms tackling official corruption.
In 2008, he oversaw a brief but intense war with Russia that ended with the humiliating loss of the remaining Georgian bases in two separatist territories.
His reign was brought to an end in the 2012 election when the then newly formed Georgian Dream Party defeated Saakashvili’s United National Movement party.
Saakashvili left for Ukraine in 2013 and became a citizen. From 2015 to 2016, he governed the southern Odesa region.
However, he was swiftly detained when he returned to Georgia in October 2021 in an attempt to strengthen opposition forces before the national municipal elections.
Georgian Dream accused of influencing verdict
Saakashvili’s lawyer on Monday accused the ruling Georgian Dream of influencing the latest extension of the ex-Georgian leader’s prison term.
“As long as Georgian Dream remains in power, the judiciary is a farce and will make whatever decision it is instructed to,” Basilaia said.
Since 2012, when Saakashvili was ousted from office, the Georgian Dream Party has remained in power and itself has recently been facing criticisms and popular protests on allegations of a crackdown on democratic freedoms.
ADVERTISEMENTThe party is also accused of steering the country away from the path toward European Union membership and back into Russia’s sphere of influence.
After going on multiple hunger strikes, Saakashvili is currently being treated at the Vivamedi facility, where he is being monitored for a number of chronic illnesses, according to the clinic.
U.S. warships have shot down roughly a dozen Houthi drones since President Donald Trump launched airstrikes against the terrorist organization on Saturday, Fox News has learned.
A senior defense official told Fox News of the developments on Sunday. The drones were aimed at the U.S. Navy’s Truman Carrier Strike Group, and were shot down “well before” they posed a serious threat, the official added.
The latest military action came after nearly a year and a half of attacks from Houthis, both on commercial merchant vessels and U.S. military ships. In a Truth Social post on Saturday, Trump wrote that he had “ordered the United States Military to launch decisive and powerful Military action against the Houthi terrorists in Yemen.”
“It has been over a year since a U.S.-flagged commercial ship safely sailed through the Suez Canal, the Red Sea, or the Gulf of Aden,” Trump continued. “The last American Warship to go through the Red Sea, four months ago, was attacked by the Houthis over a dozen times.”
US NAVY SHIPS REPEL ATTACK FROM HOUTHIS IN GULF OF ADEN
U.S. warships intercepted and shot down around a dozen Houthi drones since President Donald Trump’s airstrikes were launched on Mar. 15. (Getty Images/AP)
Trump wrote that the “relentless assaults have cost the U.S. and World Economy many BILLIONS of Dollars while, at the same time, putting innocent lives at risk.”
“To all Houthi terrorists, YOUR TIME IS UP, AND YOUR ATTACKS MUST STOP, STARTING TODAY. IF THEY DON’T, HELL WILL RAIN DOWN UPON YOU LIKE NOTHING YOU HAVE EVER SEEN BEFORE!” his post concluded.
TRUMP RE-DESIGNATES IRANIAN-BACKED HOUTHIS AS TERRORISTS: ‘THREATEN[S] SECURITY OF AMERICAN CIVILIANS’
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House on February 26, 2025, in Washington, DC. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
Trump re-designated the Houthis as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO) in January. His first administration had named the Houthis as an FTO, but the Biden administration later reversed the move.
On Sunday, the White House released photos of Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz monitoring the strikes.
President Trump is taking action against the Houthis to defend U.S. shipping assets and deter terrorist threats, the White House posted on X on March 15, 2025. (The White House)
“President Trump is taking action against the Houthis to defend US shipping assets and deter terrorist threats,” the White House wrote on X. “For too long American economic & national threats have been under assault by the Houthis. Not under this presidency.”
Fox News Digital’s Danielle Wallace contributed to this report.
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