Sydney Sweeney and Ana De Armas Star In The Wild New Film 'Eden'

[Music] I first experienced the galpagos and bumped into this in this story 15 years ago and it just wouldn't leave it just stayed with me and I started doing research and kind of tapping out an outline and just it just kept evolving i' I'd read more i' i' they made a documentary some years later that was really interesting but I kept feeling like that sort of my my take on how to approach this was being validated the more I learned about it and at one point I mentioned it in fact I'm pretty sure it was here at at Tiff when we were screening rush and I mentioned this project to Daniel back then but it then Noah pink heard about the story I told him and he and he wanted to write it as a spec he was willing to G to to gamble on that and uh when we had the script that's when it picked up all of that momentum in in Co and became you know a a a real project I wouldn't go forward without a fantastic cast so I was careful about that and fortunately starting with Daniel but including everybody U you know here we you know we I landed a tremendous cast and a lot I always expected to have to make it independently it doesn't fit the kind of investment formula that uh you know that the studios tend to be looking for right at this moment and I certainly didn't want to mold it and bend it for that I wanted to make this project and when I found that that AGC would support it and we I could put together this kind of uh cast I felt like it was appropriate it was hard work but I think the the energy and the urgency around making it seemed to kind of inform the the uh the scenes you know as as we were as we were going along how one handles humans that it's interesting that you can build a sort of paradise or an Eden of your own and balance it emotionally even if it's it's it's challenging and physically rigorous but it's it's how other people how we interact with other people it's why it's such an a sort of timely story I think because because we're all I think globally going through a situation where we we're looking at divisive ways of how to live out how the future should be and what should be led is it the head is it the heart is it the soul what Revolution needs to happen next and to me rit's perspective was was all good until he had to deal with other people the way he handled his partner Dora being present even even before the others arrived was to kind of ignore her really is what we discovered from the book this couple would have been fine if they wouldn't have shared their thoughts and had written these articles wanting to change the world but also um what is also very human a bit of vanity is you know in in in Dr R if I may say that um uh so if it if it hadn't been for that you know this couple might have you know lived uh peacefully on this on this island but uh it's interesting what this film says about community and and coexistence why are we not able as humans to you know to create communities and to create a new Paradise um why is Paradise then quickly lost as soon as you know a group of people with their agendas and egos come together the agendas are we so particular particular uh and so are the personalities I I often say it's kind of this uh this this you know uh uh Clash of of personalities and you know I the baroness in fact was very entrepreneurial she wanted she wanted to be famous she wasn't she didn't want to run away she saw an opportunity so a totally different sensibility and all of this I mean first of all generates humor in the first part of the movie but as it evolves those same qualities those same foibles they they they turn dangerous and it sort of shifts from a survival film in into a a suspense movie but I think today the baroness would probably likely be very successful woman we had a film we had a a couple books that referenced her but uh it was more about the period and trying to also create that character with a little bit of that mix of what this story that she created for herself that she wanted she Beed so are um so it was kind of like building up with with what what we had and then actresses from that time and and uh um talking to Ron about it what what we wanted to come up with yeah a little bit of everything but but r r and uh dor stra documented oh thank you documented their stay their years prior to anyone else arriving quite um diligently so there's quite a lot and dor indeed wrote a book wrote I think the first book reflecting Margaret her own answer very contradicting her opinion of what happened on the I mean this Con compared to other other uh jobs there was a lot to go on there was a lot of visual material books written they had the weird almost documentary type movie that came thanks to hand right yeah yeah so we had all of that to go off of and then both of Dora and and Margaret's books and there was also newspaper clippings about everybody too there's also I found one of the most interesting things about it was kind of getting them to me it's like you said Ron it's about personalities clashing but also philosophies and beliefs and like the rigidity of belief and when you believe something to be right and therefore something else is wrong because you believe that to be right I thought that was really interesting the examination of a kind of and and for us a sort of fanaticism I always saw it as a fanaticism and and the kind of danger of that when you think you believe reality has to be a certain way in order to you know and then it's competing things and that that in the sort of human nature as opposed to the opposite of that being community and what motivates that like what's at its heart if it's you know and and where in the in in in the human body or in the human spirit is is the is the truest root and you know if you're doing it from the head can you survive in the head can you survive in the body in the end can you survive in the heart I mean the I think in our film is the heart wins out ultimately in all of these characters and is kind of what I I think what why the story kept speaking to me why I just kind of couldn't just let it go because it wasn't wasn't easy I knew it wasn't going to be easy to get it off the ground I knew it wasn't going to be you know easy easy to make and it's been it's been a challenging one but you know within these characters it's kind of there's so nuanced there's so there there's so much Dimension and shifts and changes cuz they're you know discovering themselves things they don't like or that we might not like and also strengths that they may not have known that they had and I think that's one of the reasons why the story really does get you leaning in because the characters reflect they're paradoxical there could be nobility and hypocrisy in the same individual you know and and there could be great strength and also a private kind of uh weakness in another character and as I said things are shifting so as a as a as a director and I think the cast you know just completely embraced this and um you know and and uh I think it really offers audiences something Dynamic to watch unfold for Margaret it was her Duty unlike most of the other characters they all went with their own ambition and and on their own accord and she truly did it because that's what her husband wanted to do and that's what she was raised to believe and and just support and honor her family and do whatever best be to take care of them and so she fully and blindly followed in his footsteps and did everything in her power to keep the family strong it's it's honestly very admirable and Powerful but it's definitely a different time and a different belief but she in her heart she was doing what she knew she was raised to do [Music]