Dystopia is all around us, says Canadian director Charlotte Zhang, whose intuitive yet thoughtful Tycoon screened in the Imagina section. Zhang presented this impulsive, evocative film – one that invites audiences to interpret it for themselves – to the Karlovy Vary audience.
Although its fragmented narrative is set in 2028, the filmmaker drew inspiration from specific events in her life. “I had a problem with cockroaches at home. This unwelcome experience prompted me to take an interest in the subject. In 2020, I moved to Los Angeles at a time when the protests following the killing of George Floyd were at their height. I was also influenced by the protests in Paris in 2024, as well as by the controversy surrounding the planned 2028 Olympics,” she explained, describing the inspiration behind her imaginative and very raw film.
“The original narrative was more conventional; I gradually changed the concept. I filmed at weekends over the course of a year, which was the only sustainable way to do it. I focused on the connections between locations, spaces and relationships. The interaction between individual elements and their gradual variations creates a specific structure. Visual links included, for example, the Olympic Games logo and the circular movement of a helicopter,” the director said.
One audience member paraphrased Maggie Gyllenhaal, who had described her film The Bride! as a monster in the flesh, and suggested that Tycoon is a real monster too – one that might not be to everyone’s taste. “I find it amusing that people don’t like the film. Every work goes through its teething troubles; I like that friction and the diversity of opinion. Negative reactions are, in a way, a reward and an incentive,” said Zhang, referring to the film’s more challenging format. For the film, she cast her non-actor friends, who coped brilliantly with the script in her view.
She derived the film’s title from the Tycoon series of video games, in which players build and manage various enterprises, such as an amusement park or even a prison. According to Zhang, the name has an old-fashioned ring to it, evoking ideas of the American empire. She also spoke about the motif of cars, which moderator Martin Horyna had noted and described as an element defining both an individual’s identity and the spectacle itself. “I can’t drive. But car culture fascinates me. This is a regional issue determined by the infrastructure of specific cities,” said Zhang.
