Cinema can transform pain and trauma into something beautiful.

Women sometimes really love to look at other beautiful women on the screen. But they don't look at a woman the way a man looks at a woman. They want to be that woman. They like if a woman is beautiful or sexy, especially if she's powerful. They like to see her catch a man, or to be powerful in the world. I think this is why a lot of women love noir films and classic films because they can really identify with these really strong, beautiful women. That's the kind of power that women have lost culturally.

Anything anybody's used, a comb, a lock of hair, a drop of sweat, anything that comes from somebody's body has incredible magical power.

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.

What I'm really trying to do is recreate classic Hollywood cinema and classic genre cinema from a woman's point of view. Because most cinema is really made for men, how can you create cinema that's for women without having it be relegated to a ghetto of "chick flick" or something like that?

Plenty of women say, "I'm just going to make myself into a sex object." But they often can't stay afloat doing that. They can't maintain their sanity. Some women can, but many cannot. They think they can, but self-objectification is really dangerous.

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.