Aenne Schwarz and Louis Hofmann discuss desire and control in Ann Oren’s Locarno film ‘Objet a’

A new film showcased at Locarno, Ann Oren’s ‘Objet a’, pairs actors Aenne Schwarz and Louis Hofmann with a premise that turns bodily touch into a site of obsession and control. In an interview published Monday by The Hollywood Reporter, the performers describe how the movie explores desire in a time when, as one line puts it, people “touch flat screens more than our lover’s skin.”

Schwarz and Hofmann star in the work as hand surgeons, a setup the film uses to frame intimate longing and compulsive behavior through professional expertise and the physicality of the body. The Hollywood Reporter’s account emphasizes that their characters’ “irresistible fixations” drive the story, linking medical practice and tactile detail to broader questions about what people want and what they are able to manage.

The interview situates ‘Objet a’ within a wider cultural environment, framing the film as an attempt to measure personal desire against a backdrop of public strain. Oren’s project is discussed as arriving “in an age when we touch flat screens more than our lover’s skin,” tying the film’s intimate stakes to everyday technology habits and the emotional consequences of distraction.

The Hollywood Reporter also reports that the conversation includes the filmmakers’ sense of timing and atmosphere, referencing “war, climate catastrophe and tech fascism” as part of the broader context the film speaks to. While that framing is presented in the publication’s description of the interview, it reflects the project’s intention to connect private behavior to the mood of the moment.

As presented in the interview coverage, the film uses the surgical setting as more than backdrop, translating the high-precision culture of the operating room into a heightened language of control. By locating its central conflicts in characters trained to manipulate bodies, ‘Objet a’ seeks to show how control can become a compulsion, and how desire can be redirected into something that looks orderly on the surface.

For audiences, the Locarno context underscores that the film is positioned as contemporary European cinema built to provoke discussion rather than resolve it quickly. With Schwarz and Hofmann as recognizable leads, the project’s hook is the combination of tactile imagery, clinical realism in tone, and thematic focus on what screens have changed about attention and intimacy.

The film’s next steps, including its distribution path and any awards campaigning tied to the festival, were not detailed in the Hollywood Reporter item. As of the publication of that interview on Aug. 9, the reporting centers on the performers’ participation and the thematic rationale laid out around the title, desire, and control.

Any viewers seeking a clear sense of the plot should be guided by the festival materials and the film’s official synopsis, since the Hollywood Reporter coverage described the premise and themes more than a full sequence of events.