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 characteristic 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 personal phrases.
EA: It’s the story of Maria, a 19 year-old who needs to check her limits and limits as she embarks on a furtive and passionate relationship with a charismatic man twice her age throughout the first summer season 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 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 principle character Maria, to check her limits, to grasp herself and life, with out worry of transgressing ethical or social boundaries. The indisputable fact that she is allowed to do that as a lady, particularly as a younger lady, is one thing I used to be very concerned about bringing to the display.
W&H: What would you like individuals to consider after they watch the movie?
EA: I would love individuals to be impressed to consider their very own journey. To have a look at what it means to discover and query who you might be. This can take lots of braveness. At a younger age — however not restricted to a younger age — social norms, household, and peer strain have an enormous affect on shaping who you assume you need to develop into.
For me, Maria may be very brave.
W&H: What was the largest problem in making the movie?
EA: Whilst writing it was all the time clear that we wished 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 on no account 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 develop into a filmmaker?
EA: The tales taking place round me have all the time impressed me. I’ve all the time been very curious and have requested lots of inquiries to individuals 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 some extent that I see them on the massive display, I need to inform them utilizing inspiring actors, photos, sound, music, poetry.
There is not any different job I may ever think about doing than this one. It fulfills me utterly.
W&H: What’s the most effective and worst recommendation you’ve obtained?
EA: The worst recommendation: Your essential character must be likeable.
The finest recommendation: If you need to make movies for the cinema, for the massive display, it’s essential struggle to inform your private imaginative and prescient. You have to be open to criticism, however it’s essential be sure that to let your voice as a filmmaker keep true to you and your story.
W&H: What recommendation do you’ve for different ladies administrators?
EA: You can do something. Don’t be afraid to specific your concepts even should you’re unsure of them — that’s one thing I’ve all the time seen performed by our male colleagues, even when the concepts have been only a trace of an concept, they voice it filled with confidence. We should study this too.
Also, we’d like to pay attention to our power, which is that we as ladies are sometimes rather more open to working in and with a crew. We are a lot much less the ego-shooters, the one individual genius. Film is crew work, particularly in fiction movie. As administrators, the inspiration and expertise of others is important even when we feature the principle 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 expertise, and “On Body and Soul” by ldikó Enyedi or “Lady Chatterley” by Pascale Ferran for his or her humanity.
W&H: What, if any, obligations do you assume 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 speak for storytellers typically, however for myself I really feel I’ve a duty with the movies I make. In my tales I’m all the time concerned about standing up for the a number of factors of view of human life and exactly towards this suppression and discrimination of so-called deviations and taboos just like the stigmatization of girls who’ve suffered from post-natal melancholy ( “The Stranger in Me”), the appropriate to find out your personal dying ( “More Than Ever”), or to discover your personal want (“Someday We’ll tell each other everything”).
W&H: The movie business has an extended historical past of underrepresenting individuals of shade onscreen and behind the scenes and reinforcing — and creating — adverse stereotypes. What actions do you assume have to be taken to make Hollywood and/or the doc world extra inclusive?
EA: Very easy. More individuals of shade — and which means all shade/religions/nationalities: Hispanic, Middle Eastern, Africans, Asians, Travellers — needs to be put in positions of energy and positions of choice 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.