<body><div><figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=1YXx5h_0wDsTmLj00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=1YXx5h_0wDsTmLj00" width="1242" height="698" ></figure>South Brooklyn is a lot of things. It’s an amusement park, both literally thanks to Coney Island and its thrill rides and figuratively because of the eccentric boardwalk of Brighton Beach lined with bars and restaurants open late into the night. It’s also home to New York City's Eastern European community, one rich with culture and characters. With the limited release of the film Anora on October 18, which centers around the latter, South Brooklyn now becomes something else: a movie star.Filmmaker Sean Baker always knew he wanted to make a movie in this part of the borough—especially as it's often overlooked by pop culture in favor of more touristed neighborhoods closer to the East River. He and longtime friend and collaborator Karren Karuglian, an Armenian American actor who hails from South Brooklyn, spoke about doing so for years but held off until inspiration delivered the right plot. Anora, a Cinderella story of sorts about Russian-American sex worker Ani, who gets swept off her feet by the spoiled, itinerant son of a Russian oligarch holing up in his parents’ Sheepshead Bay mansion, was that movie.<figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=16uYKu_0wDsTmLj00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=16uYKu_0wDsTmLj00" width="960" height="540" ><figcaption>Anora , a Cinderella story of sorts about Russian-American sex worker Ani, is set in Brooklyn's Brighton Beach neighborhood. NEON</figcaption></figure>Below, Baker joins Condé Nast Traveler—fresh off a plane from London—alongside production designer Stephen Phelps to talk about this charismatic slice of New York City. From landmark establishments like Tatiana Restaurant &amp; Nightclub to the regional airports that real-life oligarchs would (and do) fly privately into, Anora has it all.On Location is a column that lifts the curtain on the destinations behind the season’s most exciting new releases, from film and television to music.What drew you to make a movie in South Brooklyn?Sean Baker: Karren Karuglian, who plays Toros in the film, we go way back. He's been in all my films. We've been talking about telling a story [set] in the Russian American community in Brighton Beach and Coney Island for 20 years now. We just couldn't figure out the plot—until recently. But it was the desire to shoot there that made this film. Number one: it’s culturally rich. Number two: it’s visually very exciting.Coney Island, in some ways, feels stuck in time. You know, the amusement park and everything around it feels like it hasn’t changed in decades. The Cyclone [wooden roller coaster] is almost 100 years old. I find it very cinematic, and I wanted to shoot it almost like postcard images that really take the landscape in. It was important for me to stay geographically accurate, you know, as the characters go on this tour through these three neighborhoods of South Brooklyn: Coney Island, Brighton Beach, and Sheepshead Bay, which is more residential and where Ivan [the oligarch’s son] lives.<figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=23AyXA_0wDsTmLj00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=23AyXA_0wDsTmLj00" width="960" height="540" ><figcaption>Brighton Beach is many things—home to New York City's Eastern European community, and iconic landmarks like Coney Island (pictured). NEON</figcaption></figure>Stephen, when Sean approached you to work on the film, what was your familiarity to the neighborhood? How did you research?Stephen Phelps: I've lived in New York for 15 years, and I was more familiar with Coney Island than Brighton Beach. As many are. It was great when we got there, because we started location scouting a bunch of different places. Sean had already found the mansion, but seeing the inside of Tatiana really gave me a sense of what this place is about. It’s a full restaurant but there’s a stage with dancers and little booths and fish tanks. There are a lot of bold choices.SB: We were always going to shoot at Tatiana—it’s iconic, it’s a landmark. Six months before shooting, we were doing some initial on-the-ground exploration and we went to Tatiana with Yuri Borisov, the actor who plays Igor. He happened to be in town, and he’s a big star in Russia. At Tatiana, he got recognized. And it started to get a little crazy, people wanted to take their photos with him. We were like, “Oh, this is the perfect time to ask them if we can shoot here.” There was an excitement and an appreciation that it wasn’t Hollywood actors coming in doing Russian accents. And when we actually filmed at Tatiana six months later, they were open that night. Those were the real people who work there and who go there.<figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=0t7ove_0wDsTmLj00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=0t7ove_0wDsTmLj00" width="960" height="540" ><figcaption>Anora, known as Ani for short, is played by Mikey Madison. NEON</figcaption></figure>You’re on location in Brighton Beach—what are you eating for lunch?SP: I was always going to this Georgian restaurant, it was my favorite place and now I can’t remember it, but there are quite a few, and getting this little cheese boat made of bread. They mix an egg in there.SB: Oh, the khachapuri.SP. Yes, the khachapuri. Maybe a little indulgent. But they have all sorts of cuisines there—Ukrainian, Georgian, Armenian, and Russian of course.The wild goose chase that Anora, Toros, and Igor go on to find Ivan allows you to feature a lot of different places—what other spots were on your hit list to feature?SB: I really relied on Karren. Brighton Beach Avenue is chock full of unique locations. There was Ocean View Cafe, the Ukrainian restaurant where a woman says that he must have been kidnapped. An Uzbek internet cafe. [Williams Candy Shop on Surf Avenue] is where they smash all the counters. We shot in a pool hall on the day that it closed permanently, and the owners were happy because we were memorializing it.<figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=3SPJwy_0wDsTmLj00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=3SPJwy_0wDsTmLj00" width="960" height="540" ><figcaption>Bright Beach locations used in Anora range from Russian nightclubs to Georgian restaurants. NEON</figcaption></figure>In the Armenian church, the role of godfather is very important, and when Toros [who is a priest on the payroll of Ivan’s parents] gets the call in the middle of a christening to go find him and abandons his post—that’s bad enough, but in this context it’s pure blasphemy. Karren was telling me that he’s been in that exact position, in that exact church, three or four times in his life being made the godfather for a kid. And you would never leave the kid. I can’t tell you the name of the church, though…What can you tell me about the more residential part of Sheepshead Bay, where the mansion is located? Do people realize there are standalone mansions in Brooklyn like that?SB: I knew they existed there, just by living in New York, knowing that Sheepshead Bay had some wealthy Russian residents, even some Russian oligarchs as residents. And so I was sitting in my West Hollywood apartment writing this thing, and I googled “biggest and best mansion in Brighton Beach” and that thing popped up. It had been on the market about four years ago, and was actually designed for and lived in by a Russian oligarch, who then sold it to a local Russian American who grew up in the neighborhood. All the photos were online on Zillow and I was able to look through the entire house from preexisting photos. I asked my incredible location manager, Ross Broder, to secure it for us. And he did. I got exactly what I wanted.<figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=2BTHPV_0wDsTmLj00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=2BTHPV_0wDsTmLj00" width="960" height="540" ><figcaption>The marriage of sex worker Ani to a Russian oligarch's son propels the storyline of Anora. NEON</figcaption></figure>There’s some private air travel in this movie—what went into shooting those scenes where Ivan’s parents arrive from Russia?SB: We shot in a real jet at the airport as well as a decommissioned fuselage of a private jet for the interior. We used the [private airfield] in Amityville on Long Island, which is where people like this would fly into.Moving briefly to Las Vegas, where Ani and Ivan elope—where did they stay?SB: We were at the Palms Casino, which was really great. When we were looking around, one place rejected us—not because it was a movie about a sex worker and sex and drugs, but because they didn’t want to perpetuate the idea that people come to Vegas and recklessly get married only to regret it later. But the Palms was great because it’s not actually on the Strip, meaning the penthouse has a beautiful view of the Strip.<figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=1wrz3t_0wDsTmLj00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=1wrz3t_0wDsTmLj00" width="960" height="540" ><figcaption>Anora is out for limited theatrical release on October 18. NEON</figcaption></figure>SP: The penthouse suite has different levels, as well as the restaurant and the club. We had a lot of space.SB: And they get married at the Little White Wedding Chapel, just like Joan Collins and Michael Jordan, down on Fremont Street. We really wanted to take advantage of Fremont Street, which is a little wild, it’s a real snapshot of America.SP: There will be, like, six bands playing in a row at any given time on Fremont at different stages set up.SB: So we had them run down the part of the street where they’ve put this big screen overhead, and that’s where we played the fireworks above them that you see on the poster.Originally Appeared on Condé Nast TravelerThe Latest Travel News and Advice<ul><li>Want to be the first to know? Sign up to our newsletters for travel inspiration and tips</li><li>These Are the World's Most Powerful Passports in 2024</li><li>The Oldest Country in the World Is This Microstate Tucked Inside Italy</li><li>This Rural Region in Spain is Paying Remote Workers $16,000 To Move There</li><li>Americans Will Need a ‘Visa’ to Visit Europe Next Year</li></ul></div></body>

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NewsBreak

Brooklyn's Brighton Beach Is Ready For Its Closeup in ‘Anora’

South Brooklyn is a lot of things. It’s an amusement park, both literally thanks to Coney Island and its thrill rides and figuratively because of the eccentric boardwalk of Brighton Beach lined with bars and restaurants open late into the night. It’s also home to New York City's Eastern European community, one rich with culture and characters. With the limited release of the film Anora on October 18, which centers around the latter, South Brooklyn now becomes something else: a movie star.