Because so many rooms are run by men they're just used to women being the "that" - to be adored and dreamed about.

Along the way, female filmmakers will have the feeling that they're not good enough. And that's really just a result of being "otherized" from the moment they're born. Keep an eye out for all those insecurities, and even expect them. Borrow white male privilege and just move through the world as if it was created for you. You have to kind of talk yourself into an imaginary space where the world is on your side and expects you to speak and wants you to speak. You have to create that space for yourself over and over again. Every hour sometimes.

If most of the reviewers are white cis men, if most of the distributors are white cis men, most of the executives in history have been white cis men. Most of the people who have been giving awards to people are people who've already been in the business - retired white cis men. They've been creating a body of narrative forever.

I've been told by people I respect that flashbacks only work if they have their own narrative, but they can't be part of the present narrative.

I was talking to my friend who's Israeli and she said that from the moment you're born, you're taught to hate the Palestinians. That's it. That's your life. That's what you learn from day one.

I did a piece where I was talking about torture at Abu Ghraib, and I embroidered my hand with the image of the hooded Abu Ghraib prisoners who'd been tortured using a needle and thread. I know that meeting a Holocaust survivor when I was eight and seeing the tattoo on her arm from her time in the camps influenced my piece about Abu Ghraib.

You have to totally change the way that society's structured in order to being to heal.