I wanted the camera to actually observe the people who come from the outside to live inside a country, instead of fantasizing about them. Also, I wanted to say the sum of who we become is thanks to the people we meet. I wanted to make a positive film.

Strangely, producing "Parisienne" was very long and difficult because the people who mainly finance films didn't understand the idea of a young foreign girl having a good time in Paris. They wanted to see her suffering and poor, and definitely not falling in love with three French men!

I'm a Lebanese woman who directs films. That's not it at all. I am not really a woman nor am I really an Arab. Because I am not an apologist for women, nor of sentimental "world" films.

I like women who are so real that they become as cowardly as certain men, as heroic as others and as sexual and dominating as men can be. And as you can imagine everything I do is [misunderstood].

Kindness and freedom are not "has been" values in films and in life in general. And that we can still be young and free even if we are 70.

Make films. And don't listen to anybody, except those who tell you "yes" and who are ready to help you.

"Parisienne" is about how you forge a life in a new place when you are 18. And it's about a Lebanese girl who discovers Paris and the French in the 90s, and through these encounters, discovers herself.