One of the things we learn in movies directed by men is what the ‘fantasy woman’ is. What we learn in movies directed by women is what real women are about. I don’t think that men see things wrong and women right, just that we do see things differently.
Only when you are relaxed can you see what’s going on.
But short films are not inferior, just different. I think the short gives a freedom to film-makers. What’s appealing is that you don’t have as much responsibility for storytelling and plot. They can be more like a portrait, or a poem.
I think if it’s interesting, it’s interesting, and if it’s not, it’s not working.
The studio system is kind of an old boys system and it’s difficult for them to trust women to be capable.
I seem to have been able to make a career out of doing what I feel like doing, so why not keep doing it? What’s corrupting is wanting to be more important. You want to be more arty – you get your identity from that. Or you get your identity out of making more money.
I didn’t like England. I couldn’t take the look of the place or the style of friendship. I need more intimacy from people than is considered okay there, and I felt that my personality and my enthusiasms weren’t understood. I had to put a big lid on myself.
A message I’ve been telling myself: the cinema is very conservative, and unless you have a story that satisfies you, that is within the unchallenging zone, but you love it, you can’t do it as cinema. Otherwise, you better go do it for television, which is more daring now.
For me, being a director is about watching, not about telling people what to do. Or maybe it’s like being a mirror; if they didn’t have me to look at, they wouldn’t be able to put the make-up on.
Between 18 and 26 I acted professionally, on the stage and a little bit on television. Acting is okay, but it’s quite pressurized. Then I went to England – I wanted to reinvent myself.
It’s harder being a woman director because on the whole women don’t have husbands or boyfriends who are willing to be wives.