WHY DID YOU CHOOSE THIS SUBJECT FOR YOUR DEBUT DOCUMENTARY?

I never planned it this way. It was after a bombing, when a woman’s body was unclaimed by her orthodox family because she’d been disowned by them for being a lesbian. I was shocked, and I started researching this. I started to meet these amazing people and they led me into this subject further. The people for the film were just there and they were amazing, and yet still, it was so difficult for me because from the start, I knew it would be impossible to show their faces.

DID YOU THINK ABOUT MAKING IT INTO A FICTION FILM RATHER THAN A DOCUMENTARY THEN?

Never. That would’ve been a cop-out!

DOES A CONFRONTATIONAL TOPIC LIKE THIS MAKE IT EASIER TO MAKE A DOCUMENTARY?

It’s not about easier or harder. The difficulty is with other things. In every documentary, there’s a conflict anyway, so it’s just not an issue for me whether the subject is controversial. In any case, I’m not rational - making a documentary is like falling in love for me. So I can’t think about how others see the topic.

IS IT INEVITABLE THAT A DOC-MAKER BECOMES AS CLOSE TO THE SUBJECT AS YOU DID WITH THESE 3 WOMEN?

Well, firstly, I can only make films that are a nightmare! I have to be totally involved. Particularly with this film, because these women are so passionate, but with so many obstacles in the way. This gives so many possibilities for a filmmaker. But I know I could not have got deep enough if I hadn’t stood with them. There’s such a gap between what people say and what they do, and so a documentary maker has to get peoples’ dreams. This was so true with these women, and the only way to get this was through knowing them for a long time and developing total intimacy.

AND YOU RESEARCHED THIS FILM FOR FOUR YEARS – WAS THAT A VITAL PERIOD FOR THIS FILM TO SUCCEED?

Yes, although I look back now to 3 or 4 years ago, when I thought I was so close to the people in the film, and I wasn’t half as close as I am now. So even now I see things I could never have seen then.

AS AN ISRAELI, IS THERE PRESSURE TO MAKE FILMS ABOUT THE WAR THERE RATHER THAN PERSONAL TOPICS?

I am also making films about the conflict there! In fact, I’m making four films at the moment! One’s about an Arab-Israeli cleaner - but it’s more about the feminist issue anyway. What’s terrible is that when there’s war, the focus becomes all about killing. Obviously, that is a priority, but the result is that there’s less emphasis on social issues, and the policies of the government for social life and art.

SO DO YOU MAKE FILMS ABOUT TOLERANCE?

In my film, I was calling for tolerance, and it could be about Palestinians or it could be about Israelis. And yet, it’s not that simple. I was in Denmark, showing the film, and I was debating with a Palestinian guy. I was representing Israel! So, you don’t have to approach these issues as such because there’s layers and layers in social life. Tolerance or intolerance are always there somewhere. There’s an issue of intolerance between the religious and secular in my film, but as much as I wanted to show that the religious people were ‘worse’, I could have also shown that the secular are hypocrites. Boaz (the husband of one of the women in the film) is tolerant. But in general, all people, religious or not, were surprised that religious women were out there living these lives, and they suddenly all have to be interested.

IS IT AN ADVANTAGE TO BE MAKING DOCUMENTARIES IN A PLACE WITH SO MANY EXTREME PERSONALITIES?

Yes, of course. I’ve never lived anywhere else, but it’s not about conflict. It’s about a person struggling with personal things, and that could be anywhere. But you know, what’s really working with Israeli society, and so with our documentary makers, is that people are very open - and this is so important. Quickly, you can see something, and see further, and it’s a starting point for better relations between all of us!

IS IT HARD TO GET FUNDING AND DISTRIBUTION, THEN, CONSIDERING HOW POWERFUL YOUR FILMS COULD BE?

No, it’s easy! I got the money, but what I needed was time and space to make mistakes. I actually tried to refuse and postpone the money because I wasn’t ready, but the Israeli Film Foundation refused. They wanted a script, and I had no idea at that stage how it was going to be! I left a meeting with them, and I knew I had to do it, and I started getting anxiety attacks. But in the end, it was great. I was able to cover my salary as a director. Money is never ever the issue for me, and that’s my approach to life in all aspects. I judge my films cinematically - that bothers me much more than money.

DID YOU EXPECT SUCH INTERNATIONAL SUCCESS WITH THIS DOCUMENTARY?

I’ve been all around the world with it! But success is so hard to measure. It’s successful because of love and faith. Yes, the film is tragic, and maybe that’s attractive, but there’s also a lot of struggle and it’s that that I wanted to make this film about all along. The Buddhist idea of seeing the other and recognising him or her. These women don’t push their issues aside, or let themselves be pushed aside either. So, it’s not even a film about lesbianism. It’s about struggle, and that is a successful topic.

WAS THE NEED FOR ANONYMITY IN THE FILM A STYLISTIC ADVANTAGE FOR YOU IN THE END?

It was a nightmare! In the film, I around some of the characters' desires for anonymity by composing beautiful shots involving fuzzyness, darkness, silhouettes, shooting through drapes or windows, etc - so that the anonymity is a positive stylistic feature of the whole film rather than just a device to avoid identification. But there was a tension between the cinematic point of view, and making the film as honest and true to an audience as possible, from a 'documentary' point of view. I needed so much space to do everything! Now I look at it, and it seems so obvious - find solutions by looking through windows! It means you are showing what’s forbidden, you see silhouettes, the unity of the family, and you can listen to their ‘secret’ conversations. It’s perfect, but it took me two and a half years.

I was distraught - documentaries are supposed to bring truth and to document, and I wanted cinema verité. But in the end, I knew I had to work with them and if I were to shoot just what I wanted to...well, I couldn’t do the film! So, I thought creatively and openly, and tried to find visual expressions. It was a very long journey, and so precise too - I needed specific solutions. But this is the kind of cinema I like - no one solution to every problem, loads of elements, and just collecting up solutions as you go along.

The best thing was in the holidays, when I could show all the unity and the beautiful side of things. So, we had the big holiday fire to hide behind, and we see only the outline of the Mother and her son at the fire, and we hear them talk so intimately. Things like that make the difficulties so beautiful.

HAS BEING A WOMAN, OR AN INSPIRATION FOR FEMALE FILMMAKERS, BEEN A CONCERN SO FAR IN YOUR CAREER?

To some extent. I’m doing a variety of films, and they’re not all ‘womens’ films'...although now I think of it, all four films I’m making at the moment are about women! And that’s not by accident. Especially in Israel, there is still a lot of violence towards women. And I’m so excited by female energy, and motivated by the need for tolerance of it. But I worry about making women all about victimhood, so I want to tell these stories because they are triumphant ones about women.

WHAT’S YOUR ADVICE FOR OUR FOURDOCCERS?

To always think before you film anything. The key issue is to cut a piece of life. What are you asking? What are your questions? I always like anything that shows the thoughts of the people featured, especially what they thought ‘before’ and ‘after’. This makes it concrete. So it’s important to not just shoot without thinking. These days, it’s much too easy to take cameras and just film, but that’s not telling the story