I want my world to get bigger and not end up in a small corner.

I feel like I've always had two selves - the part of me that makes films and the part of me that's political, and they haven't really connected that much. Alias Grace talks about things like class and immigration and women's rights, which felt really good. But especially now, there are pressing things to be said. It's a really scary time in the world. It's a very scary thing to have an American president who openly brags about assaulting women and is openly racist. This isn't a moment to be speaking in metaphors.

We're in this space right now where things are very precarious for women and things in the States are so terrifying. There are so many rollbacks of rights women have gained - and it can happen quickly, more quickly than we think. I think it would be good for us to think back and ahead to protect the space we're in.

All of my short films are about marriages, and I think that this probably comes from some kind of unconscious fascination with my parents' story and what they went through.

The ways in which people are damaged are the ways in which they're strong. It's what makes people interesting - what they've overcome and how, and what they haven't and how that's become a good thing. Almost everyone's life is both a gorgeous story and a tragedy. I think being alive is really, really hard, and I'm constantly stunned and amazed by people who make it interesting and beautiful.

I've always been such a fan of short films - in fact, I never considered that I would actually make a feature. I just thought I wanted to make shorts for the rest of my life. They are a lot harder to have shown and a lot harder to find and see as an audience, but I don't know. It's just a form that I really love. I was just making them for the process, but ultimately, I did get them into festivals, and they did end up on television, and they had as much of a life as short films can.

In fact, there's an entire universe out there that's pretty much indifferent to struggles that big, no matter how serious they've been in your life.