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The buzz around casting for the next James Bond collided with festival promotion when British actor Callum Turner faced questions about the role during a press event for Rosebush Pruning at the Berlin Film Festival. Shortly into the press conference, a reporter raised the subject to clear the air; Turner smiled and made it clear he would not answer, emphasizing the premature nature of the topic.
Turner wasn’t left to deflect on his own: co-star Tracy Letts lightened the mood with a joking claim to the 007 mantle, drawing laughter and allowing the conversation to move back to the film itself, which examines a wealthy family’s unraveling in Spain.
About the film and its themes
Rosebush Pruning is a satirical drama directed by Brazilian filmmaker Karim Aïnouz. The movie centers on four adult siblings who live in isolation with their blind father after relocating to Spain. The household’s fragile balance starts to collapse when the eldest, Jack, decides to move in with his girlfriend, setting off a chain of revelations about their mother’s death and long-hidden family secrets.
The screenplay comes from Efthimis Filippou, known for collaborations with Yorgos Lanthimos. Filippou’s script infuses the story with a darkly comic sensibility while engaging with blunt subject matter—topics such as incest, sexual abuse and murder are treated with both irony and gravity. Aïnouz describes the film as an effort to use absurdity as a tool to bring uncomfortable family dynamics into view.
Director’s perspective and creative choices
Aïnouz made a stylistic pivot with this project, moving into satire after a career marked by emotionally charged and queer-centered dramas. Responding to the film’s violent and taboo elements, he explains that the comedic edge helps audiences confront entrenched social patterns—particularly the normalization of patriarchal violence within families. For Aïnouz, laughter can open a path to difficult conversations, creating a deliberate sense of discomfort that prompts reflection.
The director found a template for the film in Marco Bellocchio’s 1965 work Fists in the Pocket, which provided a starting point for rethinking isolation and privilege in a contemporary setting. Collaborating remotely with Filippou, Aïnouz says their creative rapport was immediate and productive, and the director preserved much of the writer’s original language in the final shooting script.
Casting and ensemble dynamics
The cast is one of Aïnouz’s most luminous lineups to date. Jamie Bell plays Jack, Callum Turner is Ed—the film’s narrator whose offbeat and uneasy presence anchors much of the storytelling—while Riley Keough and Lukas Gage round out the sibling quartet. Tracy Letts portrays the complacent patriarch; Pamela Anderson appears as the deceased mother; Elle Fanning plays Martha, the quietly influential girlfriend whose arrival destabilizes the family.
Aïnouz sought actors unafraid of morally complex roles. He notes that some performers declined after reading the script, but those who stayed brought a willingness to avoid judgment and instead humanize flawed characters. Rehearsals and a concentrated shooting schedule in Catalonia were essential to building the family’s chemistry, even as initial attachments like Kristen Stewart and Josh O’Connor had to exit due to scheduling conflicts.
Festival reaction and anticipated conversation
Premiering in competition at Berlin, the film is likely to divide audiences given its mixture of dark comedy and provocative content. Aïnouz welcomes debate, arguing that cinema’s role can include unsettling viewers in order to address systemic issues. He is clear that the film aims to spark dialogue about family violence and cycles of power, not to present easy answers.
The director also explains why Berlin was a fitting home for the film’s debut: the city’s reputation for irreverence and artistic freedom resonated with the movie’s tone. For Aïnouz, the festival setting amplifies the film’s openness to risk and its willingness to test the limits of taste and comfort.
Press moment and bond speculation
Back at the press conference, when asked about the swirling speculation tying Turner to a forthcoming Bond project from director Denis Villeneuve and Amazon, the actor’s refusal to comment closed off that avenue of conversation. The exchange underlined how festival press events can quickly shift from focused film discussion to broader industry gossip, a distraction that Turner and the cast managed to steer back toward the film’s creative intentions.
In short, Rosebush Pruning presents a bold mixture of satire and domestic tragedy, carried by a high-profile ensemble and helmed by a director intent on provoking uncomfortable but necessary conversations. Whether audiences embrace its darkly comic approach or recoil from its subject matter, the film is positioned to be one of the more talked-about entries at the festival.