With Cannes 2022 beginning to wind down, the last stretch has proved especially rich with standouts. One of these eleventh-hour highlights is Albert Serra’s latest feature, Pacifiction. An epic yet elliptical political thriller, the film follows a high commissioner in French Polynesia, played by Benoît Magimel, as he snakes his way through a dense, sensorially overwhelming landscape, schmoozing with locals, activists, and other politicians, while never quite revealing his true colors. After the film’s premiere at Cannes yesterday, Dennis Lim, the artistic director of the New York Film Festival, sat down with Serra for a special Film Comment Podcast interview.

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Thanks to James Wham for production assistance.