Katherine Waterston – The World to Come #Venezia77

PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviews Katherine Waterston, actress of the film The World to Come.

Set in an isolated rural farm in the US of 1851, director Mona Fastvold depicts an intense and delicate loven story between two women in a time and place where deep human connections where almost impossible to happen. This is The World to Come, in competition at the 77th Venice International Film Festival. The film stars Katherine Waterston and Vanessa Kirby who is at the festival with another film in competition, Pieces of a Woman. Katherine Waterston is not only the protagonist of the story but the voice and the feelings of the film, her words guide us into her character’s world and her discovering real love and, quoting the film “astonishment and joy”. The actress describes her work with Mona Fastvold to shape her character and her emotions through body and words.

The World to Come: In upstate New York in the 1850s, Abigail begins a new year on the rural farm where she lives with her husband Dyer. As Abigail considers the year to come through her journal entries, we experience the marked contrast between her deliberate, stoic manner and her unravelling complex emotions. Spring arrives and Abigail meets Tallie, an emotionally frank and arrestingly beautiful newcomer renting a neighbouring farm with her husband, Finney. The two strike up a tentative relationship, filling a void in their lives which neither knew existed. We follow the progress of the two women’s increased intimacy and passionate devotion to one another, even as they begin to register that they have no model for this new state in which they find themselves. As both husbands come to terms with the intensity of their wives’ connection—Dyer’s wounded feelings and Finney’s jealous vindictiveness—events climax with Finney’s decision to move Tallie away, and Abigail’s determination to pursue her lost kindred spirit.