Sean Penn has had a complicated relationship with the Cannes Film Festival for a few years now. Although his thriller The Oath (2001) received a warm reception as a director, critics hammered him both with I’ll say your name in 2016 and Flag day in 2021, a drama based on true events co-starring with his daughter Dylan.

Now he appears again on the Croisette with Black flies as an actor only, a competition film directed by the French Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire with which he tries to redeem himself in the skin of a veteran paramedic who teaches the reality of the trade accompanying the beginner Ollie Cross (Tye Sheridan) through the violent streets of New York while riding in an ambulance to the rescue of the homeless, mentally ill, battered women or Latinos injured in dogfights.

Both actors had been preparing hard working with the Los Angeles Fire and Emergency Services, and the result would be rewarding. The film is based on Shannon Burke’s novel of the same name and focuses on mental health. But not only that of the patients they care for, but their own, since these professionals are overwhelmed, living situations on the edge without the right conditions. “90 percent of what we show in the film corresponds exactly to reality,” said a serious Penn.

“Sean and I were with professionals who did continuous 36-hour shifts,” said Sheridan, an actor who already stood out in Mud and Ready player one who gives himself to the maximum in a very demanding character. For his part, for the director, mental health “is a real problem” in the United States, especially for paramedics, “who face great violence.” So much so that there are “many suicides in this community because it is very difficult mentally to work like this.”

In his appearance before journalists, Penn referred to other current issues, such as the Hollywood writers’ strike, to which he gave his support. “The industry has been ruining writers and actors for a long time. There are many people in this sector who do not work as they would like to and who are not paid as they should be”.

The actor and director, who presented Superpower, his documentary about the president of Ukraine, at the Berlin Festival, stressed that there are many worrying new concepts around cinema, such as the use of artificial intelligence, which he called “human obscenity”. . Black Flies hasn’t garnered critical acclaim, but there has been positive feedback on Penn’s work. Will this be the expected reconciliation of him with Cannes?