From Cheetos to 'Wakanda Forever': Overheard on the 10 Directors to Watch red carpet

While there was no actual red carpet laid out at the Variety Creative Impact Awards and 10 Directors to Watch Brunch on Friday, the stars showed up ready to talk about films and their love of the craft at the Parker Palm Springs.

The 10 directors honored at this year's event were: Maggie Betts (”The Burial”), Elegance Bratton (“The Inspection”), Elijah Bynum (“Magazine Dreams”), Alice Diop (“Saint Omer”), Eva Longoria (“Flamin’ Hot”), Nida Manzoor (“Polite Society”), Laurel Parmet (“The Starling Girl”), Saim Sadiq (“Joyland”), Jingyi Shao (“Chang Can Dunk”) and Charlotte Wells (“Aftersun”).

Saim Sadiq was among the first of the honorees to arrive and had a number of reasons to celebrate: not only was he among this year's directors to watch, but "Joyland" is Pakistan's official submission to the 95th Academy Awards Best International Feature Film category. The film made the shortlist, and is also the first Pakistani film to be shortlisted in the category.

"It's great, it's amazing. About time, I feel," Sadiq said about the accomplishment. "It's not like this is the first film that was perhaps worthy of being on the shortlist or getting the Oscar buzz that it is getting. There were many films in the past as well, but I guess it's the people, it's the Academy, it's Hollywood ... audiences waking up to stories from other parts of the world and told in the way that people from other parts of the world want to tell them. That sort of acceptance and that sort of opening is big. I'm hoping it will be big and not just a one-off thing."

"Joyland" focuses on the young son of a patriarchal household who joins a risqué nightclub act as a backup dancer and begins a passionate romance with the show’s dazzling trans lead. A long-simmering desire for sexual liberation is ignited among the members of his conservative family.

The director was excited to be back in the desert, after previously attending the 2018 Palm Springs International ShortFest. He recalled meeting "really nice" people and feeling like "they take time to talk to you."

While actress Eva Longoria might be best known for her on-camera work, she has enjoyed moving behind the scenes for her feature directorial debut "Flamin’ Hot." The film tells the inspirational story of Richard Montañez, the man who claims he came up with the tongue-scorching Cheetos recipe earned Frito-Lay a fortune (contrary to a 2021 Los Angeles Times article that claims he did not).

She admitted she did not used to know Montañez's story, who was a janitor at the company and worked his way up to become a marketing executive. Once she read the script, she felt she had to take on the project.

"I read the script and thought, 'Wow, it's a really powerful story here, a big lesson for everybody,' and so I fought to get the job to direct the movie," Longoria said. "I had no plans ... this story just came across and I said 'I have to be the director to this movie.'"

To already be named as a director to watch, she said, was "really, really surreal."

"Flamin’ Hot" will premiere on Hulu on June 9, and Longoria said audiences have been responding well to initial test screenings. The film "has a lot of heart and humor," she added.

The actress also appears in "Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe," which is showing at the Palm Springs International Film Festival Jan. 8, 9 and 15. Alongside her on that project are Max Pelayo, Reese Gonzales, Kevin Alejandro, Luna Blaise, Eugenio Derbez and Veronica Falcón.

Parmet's film "The Starling Girl,” about a teenager struggling with her place within her Christian fundamentalist community, will have its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival later this month. The director said it is an accomplishment she has wanted for most of her life, and now that it is fast approaching, it felt "pretty surreal."

Her feature film debut focuses on heavy themes, and she said she is drawn to stories about complicated women and films that are morally ambiguous.

On being named one of this year's most exciting up-and-coming directors, Parmet said "I was not expecting this."

"It feels really good to feel like I made the right choice and I'm moving in the right direction in my career," she said. "I feel like I'm good at what I do, which is a wonderful thing to feel and is kind of a foreign feeling, truthfully."

Shao's film “Chang Can Dunk” will also premiere on March 10 on Disney+. He said it was an "incredible experience" making the film, which is about a vertically challenged Chinese American high school athlete who gets himself in trouble after making a wager that he can dunk by season’s end. A trailer has yet to come out for the film, and Shao said he's excited to see people react to the film once it hits the streaming platform.

For his second feature film, "The Inspection" director and writer Bratton pulled directly from his personal life to bring an emotional story to the big screen. The filmmaker was kicked out of his home at age 16 because he was gay, he said, and he was homeless for 10 years. He joined the Marines, where he ended up becoming a filmmaker. "The Inspection," starring Jeremy Pope and Gabrielle Union, shows protagonist Ellis French's time in boot camp.

"To have had that experience to be able to, one, survive it, then to make a film about it and have that film be one of Variety's 10 Directors to Watch, I'm overwhelmed with gratitude and I'm excited for the future," Bratton said. "I can't wait to make more of these so you can keep an eye on me."

In terms of what audiences can expect from him in the future, he said it would be a mix of different stories. He added that he enjoys watching all types of movies from all genres.

"Saint Omer" director Diop also pulled from personal experience for her feature film debut. A pregnant young novelist (Kayije Kagame) attends the trial of Laurence Coly (Guslagie Malanda), a Senegalese woman accused of murdering her 15-month-old child by leaving her on a beach to be swept away by the tide, in order to turn the tragic event into a literary retelling of Greek tragedy "Medea." The film is based on the 2016 French court case of Fabienne Kabou, who was convicted of the same crime, and Diop attended the trial.

Diop, speaking in French, said through a translator that when she was in the courtroom, she was "so deeply moved by what was said and what was happening." She then realized that there was "a universal dimension to that story" that needed to be put on the big screen. "Saint Omer" also made the Oscars shortlist for Best International Feature Film for France.

The Creative Impact Awards were also given out to "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" star Angela Bassett, "Causeway" actor Brian Tyree Henry, "Glass Onion" director/writer Rian Johnson and "Elvis" director Baz Luhrmann.

Academy Award nominee Bassett earned the Creative Impact in Acting Award, which was presented to her by costume designer Ruth Carter. The actress said her day was "a little overwhelming," but the energy at the Parker Palm Springs was contagious, so she was "feeling more energized" as the day went on.

In "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever," the sequel to "Black Panther," the fictional African nation of Wakanda mourns the loss of King T'Challa, which coincided with the 2020 death of actor Chadwick Boseman. Coming together as a family to make the sequel was one of the "positive sides that's come out it," Bassett said.

"We were able to come together and make a film that celebrates his artistry, his legacy, his life and his love," she added.

Carter added that the pandemic brought many challenges with shooting the film as well, but once big scenes were successfully executed, such as the funeral procession for King T'Challa or those in the underwater nation of Talokan, "we were kind of loving on each other in a way. We needed it so badly."

Henry hit the red carpet with "Causeway" director Lila Neugebauer, and "Till" star Danielle Deadwyler presented him with the Creative Impact in Breakthrough Performance Award. In the film, Henry plays James, an auto mechanic who has physical and mental trauma after a car accident. "Causeway" also stars Jennifer Lawrence, who plays a U.S. soldier who returns home after experiencing a traumatic brain injury.

The actor said the role allowed him to explore a variety of emotions and processes that humans go through.

"I just wanted to explore what this relationship to what beginnings look like, discovering friendships, going through grief and shame and trauma, what it looks like to come out on the other side of that. I think 'Causeway' provided a place for that," Henry said. "I don't want to say it was therapy, but in a way it really was, because it gave me a place to let my burdens down, which I really wanted to do."

Among the biggest lessons learned from the film, Neugebauer said, was the value of patience, especially given the film's long pause in filming due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Henry said the value of care was another bit of knowledge he gained, because of the film's emotional subject matter and how protected actors felt on the set.

Ema Sasic covers entertainment and health in the Coachella Valley. Reach her at ema.sasic@desertsun.com or on Twitter @ema_sasic.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: What the stars said on the Variety 10 Directors to Watch red carpet