While we were filming Human, it really struck us the difference between the interviews of men and women.
Once women got in front of the camera, it was as if they had been waiting
for this moment their whole lives.
It was as if they had been keeping things to themselves for so many years
and then for this moment,
finally, someone was there to listen to their story.
For Woman, we decided the best way to focus on the story was to just have
the face, the emotion, and the voice.
We want to go deeper and try to explore what is it to be a woman.
If I feel something, I put it in. If I don′t feel something, I use less of the feeling and more of the thinking.
If you have two of them that are really, really nice but it′s the same thing
and she just says it differently,
I have to choose one of them and sometimes it′s really hard to choose one or the other.
Because they both sound amazing but sometimes one has this thing that doesn′t
have the other or you know,
vice versa so you still have to make a choice
and that′s where I′m always like ‵Did I make the right choice?′
When we started working on Woman, it was very important for me, on paper let′s say,
to say that this film will be very balanced.
So, there are things about the difficulties, discriminations,
and questions about love, about happiness, about empowerment. Yeah, very positive.
But unfortunately, I have to be honest with you, most of the stories we hear are very hard
and this is where you understand that
a life of a woman is quite often a fight and even when you ask in a positive way,
you can feel that the woman who is very positive has been through a lot of stuff.
Obviously we have to show the reality but what we want to show is the inner strengths women have
and what they′re capable of.
Rwanda took me two weeks to select. It usually takes me one week/ a week and a half,
but it took me two weeks because I had to take breaks pretty often because this was the most
intense one that I watched.
But some other times it′s really beautiful and really nice and funny, so even in Rwanda
there were some really funny parts about female sexuality so, you know, it was really, really funny.
I feel very hopeful about the future. Very hopeful.
Because when I′m in front of all these women
we interview all around the world, and when I listen to their stories and when I
hear what they had to overcome, and they′re still there standing.
These women who have never been given an opportunity in their life.
Imagine if tomorrow the opportunity is there, what will happen.
I think on a personal level I′m really learning to
love and appreciate being a woman because I used to only see the injustice
and the problems around it, and now I see also the beauty about it
and it′s kind of empowering to see strong women and women overcoming things,
just being loving. I hope this movie will make people more understanding and open-minded.
I feel that women don′t want to wait any more. Maybe if we wait a bit, it will change.
Maybe if we explain a bit better, men will change. Maybe if this or that happens. No.
More and more women say ‶OK, I don′t want to see what happens tomorrow.
I want to be part of that change and I want it to happen now.″