Director Atom Egoyan’s (The Sweet Hereafter) latest work follows an earnest 
theatre director Jeanine (Amanda Seyfried) 
as she is preparing for the daunting task of remounting her former mentor’s most famous work, the opera “Salome”. Haunted by dark and disturbing memories from her past, Jeanine allows her repressed trauma to color the 
present as she re-enters the opera world after so many years away. Egoyan first directed the opera, Salome, in 1996, the first opera in what would be many to come over his career. Best known as a prominent film director since the 1980s, Egoyan has proven he is a master of both mediums. “I’ve been involved with opera for a number of years, doing it parallel to my film work. I always wondered if there was a way to bring the two worlds together”. More recently, Egoyan was i
nterested in exploring what the production of Salome would mean in our current culture. This interest led him to write the script for SEVEN VEILS, about a remount of Salome that he f
filmed at the same time the opera was on stage, using the opera singers from Salome in the film. Director / Producer / Screenwriter Atom Egoyan joins us to talk about his fascination with this complicated Biblical tale, the more recent history of a contemporary update by Oscar Wilde and the re-interpreted version by composer Richard Strauss, working with a stellar cast led by a stand out performance by Amanda Seyfried and how modern themes around cultural appropriation, identity politics and sensitivities to sexual misconduct in his remount of Salome permeate this contemporary and compelling version, SEVEN VEILS.
For more go to: variancefilms.com/seven-veils
About the filmmaker – Writer/Director Atom Egoyan is one of the most celebrated contemporary filmmakers on the international scene. His body of work – which includes theatre, music, and art installations – delves into issues of memory, displacement, and the impact of technology and media on modern life. Egoyan has won numerous prizes at international film festivals including the Grand Prix and International Critics Awards from the Cannes Film Festival, two Academy Award® nominations, and numerous other honours. His films have won twenty-five Genies – including three Best Film Awards – and a prize for Best International Film Adaptation from The Frankfurt Book Fair. Egoyan’s films have been presented in numerous retrospectives across the world, including a complete career overview at the Pompidou Centre in Paris, followed by similar events at the Filmoteca Espagnol in Madrid, the Museum of The Moving Image in New York, and the Royal Cinematek in Brussels. Adoration won the Ecumenical Jury Award after premiering in Competition in Cannes, and Chloe was selected as Opening Night Premiere at the San Sebastian Film Festival in Spain. With three major prizes at Cannes, two Academy Award® nominations, and unanimously positive reviews, THE SWEET HEREAFTER is widely regarded as the most acclaimed English- Canadian film ever made. Devil’s Knot premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2013. The Captive, starring Ryan Reynolds, Mireille Enos, Scott Speedman, and Rosario Dawson, was released to great box-office success. Egoyan’s feature, Remember, starring Christopher Plummer premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and was released worldwide in 2015/16. Egoyan returned to the theatre with his successful production of Richard Strauss’s SALOME, premiered by The Canadian Opera Company in 1996, and later presented by Houston Grand Opera and Vancouver Opera, before being remounted by the C.O.C. in 2002 and again in 2013. His original opera, ELSEWHERELESS, with music by Rodney Sharman, received over 30 performances throughout Canada, and was nominated for six Dora Awards. In 1998, Egoyan directed the world premiere of Gavin Bryars’ DR. OX’S EXPERIMENT for English National Opera in London, and also directed Richard Wagner’s DIE WALKÜRE as part of the Canadian Premiere of The Ring Cycle, winning the Dora Award for Outstanding Production. In 2015, his production of DIE WALKÜRE swept the Dora Awards with nine nominations, with Egoyan winning for Best Direction. Egoyan was honoured with a 2016 Opera Canada Award (Rubie) for Film and Stage Direction. On the occasion of Samuel Beckett’s Centenary Celebration in 2006, Egoyan’s critically acclaimed interpretation of Beckett’s EH JOE starring Michael Gambon and Penelope Wilton, was presented by The Gate Theatre in Dublin, later transferring to London’s West End (where The Sunday Times proclaimed it, ‘the greatest half-hour in theatrical history’), and was then remounted with Liam Neeson as part of the Lincoln Center Festival in New York in 2008. For this production, he won The Irish Times/ESB Award for Best Direction. Egoyan’s original production of Mozart’s COSÌ FAN TUTTE with the Canadian Opera Company was first performed in 2014, then remounted in 2019 by both the COC and Israeli Opera in Tel Aviv. In 2018, Egoyan mounted a theatrically-staged version of Alexander Zemlinsky’s LYRIC SYMPHONY combining the first movements of Alban Berg’s LYRIC SUITE. After the acclaimed production of Janáček’s JENŮFA at Pacific Opera Victoria in 2017, Egoyan returns to direct Benjamin Britten’s DEA TH IN VENICE in 2021.
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“Essentially serving as a constant spectator, looking in on both the production and her own tangled life, Seyfriend impressively conveys a myriad of tamped-down, long-repressed emotions with an economy of dialogue at her disposal.” – Michael Rechtshaffen, The Hollywood Reporter
“A fascinating film about appropriation – not cultural but personal, the morally dubious territory in which the artist takes your trauma and spins it into gold.” – Kate Taylor, Globe and Mail
“Seven Veils is far from the first film to explore how art imitates life, but Atom Egoyan’s take on a familiar theme is so feverish that one can’t help being swept up in its mad vision.” – Tim Grierson, Screen International
“Amanda Seyfried gives a dynamic, complex performance as an opera director grappling with trauma in her past and present.” – Emily Zemler, Observer
“[Atom Egoyan] could have simply filmed his latest Canadian Opera Company remounting of “Salome,” a visceral Bible extrapolation… Instead he chose to make fresh drama out of it, syncing his screen and stage passions to mesmerizing effect.” – Peter Howell, Toronto Star