Cinema can transform pain and trauma into something beautiful.

Heterosexual women who've had long-term relationships see their man fall apart. They go, "I'm giving him my whole life - I'm giving him my love, I'm cooking for him, he's got this great sex, he's got everything. Why is he so miserable all of a sudden? Why does he want to get away with his buddies and look at other girls? What is his problem?" It seems like something that happens to men, they feel like their manliness has been chipped away and destroyed by being with just one woman. They feel resentful and they're passive-aggressive.

The more that I see the sexism and misogyny that's coming at me from every direction, the less I think my films have anything to do with sexploitation.

I see being a woman in the world as a social problem. That's very urgently problematic in terms of it still being a man's world, and women's identities still being shaped by the way men look at them, and the way men can control what kinds of opportunities they can get based on how desirable the men find them, or how compliant. I don't think that's really changed a lot.

I base everything on my own life experiences as a female. I start from there, and then I look for characters and settings that I think are cinematic, where I can use symbols and imagery to tell a story.

We women have gained so many more things, but we lost that kind of sexual power, the glamour power. We still love women who can still do that in culture.

Cinema can transform pain and trauma into something beautiful.