Can you share some specific challenges you've faced as a mother of two girls while directing and producing a film? How do you find a balance between your professional life in cinema and your personal life as a mother? Do you have any advice for other women trying to balance both responsibilities?
Motherhood changed everything, including my work life. From basic things like my work schedule (for example, staying up late to get ahead on a script isn't realistic anymore, as I can't make up for lost sleep the next day) to the mental load, which is massive during the child-rearing years. I've had to balance this in my professional life, and that's only possible by delegating tasks, mainly office logistics, paperwork, and so on. My presence on set is not the same now. I take on far fewer projects than before, but they are more ambitious: If I'm going to spend a month shooting sixteen hours a day, it has to be worth the effort. The themes of my movies are different now, too; I'm interested in delving into more social themes, making films that are transformative in some way.
When it comes to balancing parenting and work, I'm extremely fortunate that, except during shoots, I work from home. I can do my job with a mobile phone, a computer, and an internet connection from anywhere. This gives me a lot of freedom and allows me to organize my time and adapt to my daughters, not the other way around. My partner and I work together and team up, both professionally and in raising our daughters. When I need to travel for in-person meetings, shoots, meetings, or talks, balancing is possible thanks to the support of my partner, or, if we both have to be away, our families, who are there when needed.
Also, at home, we involve our daughters in our work very organically. The world of cinema is a universe that both of them like and enjoy feeling a part of. My eldest daughter has come to several of our shoots and loves, for example, seeing the editing process, and post-production… even helping with it and watching the film take shape. They've even been in front of the camera, as in "Ancestral," where both are part of the artistic cast of the film.