Cannes Q&A: Charlie Kaufman

May 18, 2008 Few filmmakers have earned the label "auteur" more quickly than Charlie Kaufman, and even fewer have gained it without having helmed a feature. [...] all eyes are on his directorial debut, "Synecdoche, New York," the story of a theater director (Philip Seymour Hoffman) who uses a grant to create the ultimate play: a city within a city within a warehouse. The production extends decades as Hoffman's director deals with a crippling disease and the many women in his life, played by Catherine Keener, Hope Davis, Samantha Morton, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Michelle Williams, Emily Watson and Dianne Wiest.

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