Emily Atef is a French-Iranian filmmaker who was born in Berlin. She studied directing on the German Film and Television Academy Berlin (DFFB). Her first function movie, “Molly’s Way,” gained the German Cinema New Talent Award for finest screenplay on the 2005 Munich Film Festival and the Grand Jury Award on the Mar del Plata Film Festival. Her different options embrace “The Stranger in Me” (“Das Fremde in mir”), “Kill Me” (Töte mich”), and “3 Days in Quiberon” (“3 Tage in Quiberon”). The latter gained seven Lolas on the 2018 German Film Awards, together with Outstanding Feature Film and Best Director.
“Someday We’ll Tell Each Other Everything” is screening on the 2023 Berlin International Film Festival, which runs from February 16-26.
W&H: Describe the movie for us in your individual phrases.
EA: It’s the story of Maria, a 19 year-old who desires to check her limits and limits as she embarks on a furtive and passionate relationship with a charismatic man twice her age in the course of the first summer time after the autumn of the Berlin Wall.
W&H: What drew you to this story?
EA: What I discovered fascinating in Daniela Krien’s novel “Some Day We’ll Tell Each Other Everything,” which we tailored to the display screen with this movie, was the taboo-breaking portrayal of a younger lady’s want, of feminine want, with all its aspects. The curiosity of the primary character Maria, to check her limits, to know herself and life, with out worry of transgressing ethical or social boundaries. The proven fact that she is allowed to do that as a lady, particularly as a younger lady, is one thing I used to be very thinking about bringing to the display screen.
W&H: What would you like folks to consider after they watch the movie?
EA: I would love folks to be impressed to consider their very own journey. To take a look at what it means to discover and query who you’re. This can take loads of braveness. At a younger age — however not restricted to a younger age — social norms, household, and peer stress have an enormous affect on shaping who you suppose you need to grow to be.
For me, Maria could be very brave.
W&H: What was the most important problem in making the movie?
EA: Whilst writing it was at all times clear that we needed to inform an equal love story regardless of the age distinction. The story is instructed from Maria’s perspective. She is the lively one on the finish of the day — she is the one who chooses, regardless of her youthful age.
During the financing of the movie I wanted to speak about it and make it clear to the financiers that Maria was under no circumstances a sufferer.
W&H: How did you get your movie funded? Share some insights into how you bought the movie made.
EA: In Germany the funding is especially public, and my producer Karsten Stöter ( ROW Pictures) and I had already efficiently made my earlier German movie, “3 Days in Quiberon,” collectively. So there was already some belief in our work from funding establishments and broadcasters. What additionally helped was that Daniela Krien had additionally simply come out with the bestseller “Love in Case of Emergency.”
W&H: What impressed you to grow to be a filmmaker?
EA: The tales taking place round me have at all times impressed me. I’ve at all times been very curious and have requested loads of inquiries to folks near me and even to strangers as a result of their tales, particularly when they’re existential, have me. And a few of these tales or moments in an individual’s life encourage me to a degree that I see them on the large display screen, I need to inform them utilizing inspiring actors, photos, sound, music, poetry.
There isn’t any different job I might ever think about doing than this one. It fulfills me utterly.
W&H: What’s the perfect and worst recommendation you’ve obtained?
EA: The worst recommendation: Your most important character needs to be likeable.
The finest recommendation: If you need to make movies for the cinema, for the large display screen, you should battle to inform your private imaginative and prescient. You must be open to criticism, however you should be sure to let your voice as a filmmaker keep true to you and your story.
W&H: What recommendation do you may have for different ladies administrators?
EA: You can do something. Don’t be afraid to specific your concepts even when you’re undecided of them — that’s one thing I’ve at all times seen finished by our male colleagues, even when the concepts had been only a trace of an concept, they voice it stuffed with confidence. We should be taught this too.
Also, we’d like to pay attention to our power, which is that we as ladies are sometimes way more open to working in and with a group. We are a lot much less the ego-shooters, the one particular person genius. Film is group work, particularly in fiction movie. As administrators, the inspiration and expertise of others is important even when we stock the primary imaginative and prescient of the movie.
W&H: Name your favourite woman-directed movie and why.
EA: “Beau travail” from Claire Denis, “La Ciénaga” by Lucrecia Martel, and “Red Road” by Andrea Arnold for his or her distinctive, clever, and highly effective cinematic language and storytelling abilities, and “On Body and Soul” by ldikó Enyedi or “Lady Chatterley” by Pascale Ferran for his or her humanity.
W&H: What, if any, tasks do you suppose storytellers need to confront the tumult on the planet, from the pandemic to the lack of abortion rights and systemic violence?
EA: Well, I wouldn’t discuss for storytellers basically, however for myself I really feel I’ve a duty with the movies I make. In my tales I’m at all times thinking about standing up for the a number of factors of view of human life and exactly in opposition to this suppression and discrimination of so-called deviations and taboos just like the stigmatization of ladies who’ve suffered from post-natal despair ( “The Stranger in Me”), the best to find out your individual dying ( “More Than Ever”), or to discover your individual want (“Someday We’ll tell each other everything”).
W&H: The movie business has an extended historical past of underrepresenting folks of colour onscreen and behind the scenes and reinforcing — and creating — detrimental stereotypes. What actions do you suppose must be taken to make Hollywood and/or the doc world extra inclusive?
EA: Very easy. More folks of colour — and which means all colour/religions/nationalities: Hispanic, Middle Eastern, Africans, Asians, Travellers — needs to be put in positions of energy and positions of determination makers: CEOs of studios, streamers, broadcasters, brokers. And if we then see that issues are nonetheless altering too slowly then there needs to be quotas, [and] the identical [goes] for feminine employees behind the scenes.
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