Jennifer Fox is an internationally acclaimed and award-winning producer, director, writer, and camerawoman. Her film credits include “Beirut: The Last Home Movie,” “An American Love Story,” and “Flying: Confessions of a Free Woman.”

“The Tale” premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival on January 20.

W&H: Describe the film for us in your own words.

JF: “The Tale” is about a “relationship” that a 13-year-old girl has with an adult coach in 1973: it’s based on what happened to me at 13, and how I processed it as “love” up until I was in my 40s. I like to call it a film memoir.

The story is told from both the adult point-of-view and the point-of-view of the 13-year-old girl. It’s an exploration of memory — how memory can be a “constructive activity” that the mind engages to process trauma and to create our very identity.

It’s my raw attempt to open up this often-misunderstood subject of sexual abuse in all of its difficult complexities, so we can begin to have a deeper conversation about how and why this happens, its effects, and its prevention.

W&H: What drew you to this story?

JF: I’ve been trying to tell this story since it happened to me in 1973. I even wrote a “story” about it soon after it happened and handed it into my seventh grade English class as “fiction”! I’ve always been fascinated by this event in my life — why did this happen to me? Who were these coaches, really, that they would be attracted to a pre-prepubescent, flat chested, shy little girl?

For some reason, from when I was very young to this day, I always wrote diaries, poetry, and fiction about my life. I somehow understood that storytelling was a way to process the confusion of the world around me and to make sense of it.

For years, every time I tried to approach this story, whatever I wrote seemed trite and didn’t represent the complexity of what was inside of me. It wasn’t until I was in my 40s making the film “Flying: Confessions of a Free Woman” about women around the world that something changed.

W&H: What do you want people to think about when they are leaving the theater?

JF: I hope they go on a journey that makes them reflect back on their own life, their own memory, and what they’ve told themselves about their own lives and stories. I’d like them to feel that they’ve awoken to how complex this silenced and taboo topic of child sexual abuse is and begun to understand it in a deeper, more nuanced way so that we can begin to change the conversation about it.

The world is so afraid of child sexual abuse that it paints it in crude black and white terms, which ends up hurting everyone — the survivors, the families, the institutions — and misses the cues to prevent the perpetrators.

This film opens the reality that it is so much more nuanced than we’ve been able to tolerate before. Now is the time to open this conversation in a deeper and more holistic way.

W&H: What was the biggest challenge in making the film?

JF: What wasn’t a challenge?! The odds that a film like this gets made by a first-time narrative filmmaker — despite my 30 years of documentary experience — is like getting an elephant through the eye of a needle.

I began to write this script 10 years ago, way ahead of the curve for this issue, and I was told no one would support a film on this subject. I was committed to a very deep telling of the story that had never been done before. Everyone who joined the project are heroes in my mind, as against all odds, they believed it was important to bring out this story long before the culture was caught up to it last year.

It took enormous luck, perseverance, and the commitment of key people — including first and foremost Laura Dern, who threw her energy behind the project a year and a half before we had a dime of financing and then agreed to fit us into her very heavy schedule over the course of nearly a year.

I was also mentored by two very generous men, Oren Moverman and Brian De Palma, and a team of dedicated female producers: Laura Rister, Mynette Louie for Gamechanger Films, Simone Pero, and Reka Posta. Not to mention my German producer, Sol Bondy. I could go on and on about how many people helped along the way, because our credits are five minutes long and they are real!

W&H: How did you get your film funded? Share some insights into how you got the film made.

JF: Simply, “The Tale” is a very big film to produce. It has both the 1973 period set and the present time and every character is played by two people. There are children, horses, stunts, intimate scenes, and body doubles.

The film was financed in part by a mixture of German funds — the first funds in — Louisiana Tax Credit, and Equity monies, with the lead financier being Gamechanger Films, who have been a stalwart partner throughout the making and the only financier at the time who would have taken such a big risk on this project and me.

Most uniquely, due to the issue-based nature of the film, there was also a significant portion of the film financed by philanthropic monies. The reason we were able to look for philanthropic funds for “The Tale” is that I always planned side-by-side to the film’s commercial release to have an outreach and audience engagement component to the distribution.

As early as the script writing phase, I brought on an issue-based producer — Simone Pero — to help begin to plan our outreach for the film. Later, Simone and I devised a campaign to approach women who would understand how important this film is because of the issue.

Coming from the documentary space, my message was clear: here is a script that has the best of both worlds. It has big-name actors, the scope, and audience reach of great fiction, but with the impact of a documentary.

Our first champion to come on board was our incredible producer Regina Scully, who has funded many issue-based documentaries through her Artemis Rising, but made “The Tale” her first narrative film. Another critical champion was unstoppable powerhouse Lynda Weinman, who came on full force to produce the film as well. But the list of female supporters who backed this film reads like a who’s who of women leaders in the space. I am forever grateful. Just watch our credits!

W&H: What does it mean for you to have your film play at Sundance?

JF: It means the world for the film — and has for every film I’ve had play there. Sundance has become the North America tastemaker.

Making an independent feature is such an act of faith every step of the way and each step you have to get people to believe in the film. But one of the last steps is now that you’ve made it, how will it be viewed? Is it worthy of a wide audience, wide distribution, and a national conversation?

Though it’s only the beginning, getting into Sundance is a crucial vote on this journey of bringing the film into the world on a big scale.

W&H: What’s the best and worst advice you’ve received?

JF: Well, the best advice of all time is from my father when I was in 20s, making my first film “Beirut: The Last Home Movie,” which took six years and nearly killed me. I came to him nearly crying one day a year or two [into the process] saying that the film was never going to be finished and I was failing.

He said, “If you judge success by time you will always fail.” He meant that if you open up your mind and don’t judge your success by the clock, you can always figure out how to solve it. In the end if it doesn’t matter if it takes one year or 10 years if the results are good.

On this project, I was beyond lucky to have a great and tough mentor, Oren Moverman. He gave me so much good, honest advice. I wouldn’t be here without him. One thing that changed my life was what he told me when we were discussing my upcoming first meeting with Laura Dern, who had just read the script.

He said, “If she likes the film, try not to let her leave the table without a commitment to be in the film.” That day Laura and I had a great conversation. She loved the script and was completely sympathetic to the issue and the complex telling of the story, but I am sure she was thinking that she would go away, talk to her team, and consider it further.

At the end of breakfast, with Oren’s voice in my ears, I reached out my hand to her, and said, “So are you in?” She looked at me for moment with this look of surprise like, “Am I up for this challenge?” and then she said, “Yes I am in!”

The worst advice I ever got was from producers who told me I had to make this film — which involved a 1973 period set, children, horses, and sensitive scenes — for under a million dollars. They said that given the financial environment and the fact I was a first-time narrative director, we could never raise more than a million for this film. Luckily, I understood after a while that either I had to put away the script for “The Tale” and write another cheaper script or I had to change producers and raise a lot more money.

W&H: What advice do you have for other female directors?

JF: God, I don’t think I have advice for anyone, except for there is not one right way to get your film made. Dare to dream your different dream and then plot how to get there. Everything you do in filmmaking is a creative act, including fundraising.

Don’t be passive. If you want to direct something original that matters to you you’ll have to embrace the issue of raising money. Nearly every successful independent film director is a producer as well, even if they pretend they are not.

W&H: Name your favorite woman-directed film and why.

JF: It’s funny, but I was so disassociated from my gender when I was growing up in the ’60s and ’70s. It was a time that girls were told that they weren’t allowed to do anything but be a nurse or a teacher. I hated those limitations and my strange way to survive was to deny there was any difference between the genders at all; I was going to do everything a boy/man could do. I didn’t even allow myself to realize that in college my all-time favorite filmmaker was not Fellini, not Godard, not Truffaut, but someone named Lina Wertmüller.

In middle age I looked back and chuckled at my ability to blind myself to the fact that I had chosen the only woman out there directing features at the time! Unconsciously, I was looking for someone who I could actually identify with.

Her work was so original, so funny, and yet political and full of social commentary. It was the kind of work I dreamed to do. I still feel she is one of the absolutely most brilliant film directors. It’s not really one film, but she created a whole body of work that’s off the charts: “The Seduction of Mimi,” “Swept Away,” and “A Night Full of Rain.”

W&H: Hollywood is in the midst of undergoing a major transformation. Many women and some men in the industry are speaking publicly about their experiences being assaulted and harassed. What do you think of the recently announced anti-sexual harassment Commission made up of industry leaders? Do you believe that it will help make systemic change? What do you think needs to be done to address this issue?

JF: I am so excited by what is going on today on this issue in the industry. I think we live in an amazing, earth-shattering moment when we can actually imagine that gender parity can happen in our lives.

In documentary, it’s different. Perhaps because of the smaller crews, the way you work, and the smaller budgets. There are many women directing documentaries, but as the budgets go up, you see fewer female directors.

I remember in the ’90s I was creating the 10-part series “An American Love Story,” and suddenly I looked around and there was not one other woman developing and directing a large series. I never told anyone this, but I had to construct a whole PR strategy to sell the fact that I, as a 30-year-old young woman, could handle the size and scope.

When I moved into narrative feature directing, looking at the stats, I became so depressed. Every time I got on a plane, there was not one film out of 20 offered that had been directed by a woman. Every award ceremony I watch never has one female director nominated for best director. I really can’t believe it. This is 2018 — what is going on? But suddenly now, for the first time, I think, “Oh my God, this could change. Tomorrow 50 percent of the fiction feature films could be directed by women. It’s possible.” Do I dare have hope? Yes.