Beatriz Seigner’s feature debut, “Bollywood Dream,” screened at over 20 international film festivals, including Busan, Tokyo, Paris, Los Angeles, and São Paulo. It marked the first film co-production between Brazil and India. Seigner has also directed a documentary, which is currently in post-production, and several short films. “Los Silencios” is her second feature film.

“Los Silencios” will premiere at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival on May 11.

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

BS: It is a film about a woman, played by Marleyda Soto, who has to deal with the disappearance of her daughter and husband while living on an island between Brazil, Colombia, and Peru.

W&H: What drew you to this story?

BS: A Colombian friend of mine told me this story of her childhood, when she had just moved to Brazil, and I kept dreaming about it.  I decided to write it down in order to have my dreams back. In doing so, I remembered parts of my own childhood that were very close to her story, and also I got the chance to interview over 80 Colombian families living in Brazil, fleeing  from [the country’s] armed conflict and the drugs on war — which kills much more people than the drugs themselves.

I also admire the Colombian culture, and the Peace Agreement process that they’re passing through. I wanted to show Brazil and the world how brave [Colombians] are in taking up this peace challenge, with restorative justice, rural land reforms, and non-punitive reintegration of the armed population.

I think [Latin Americans] live in very similar conflicts, and we need to look at each other in order to find solutions and inspiration in our decolonization processes.

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

BS: I started writing this script in 2009, just when I was finishing my first film, and we started to apply to public film funds in 2012, so it’s been a long journey to bring it to the screen — almost one-third of my life.

All heads of department on our film are women — the DP, art director, dress designer, editor, and me, and most of our crew. Three of us were breastfeeding during the shoot, including myself.

We needed to make a safe place for the babies in the middle of the Amazon, and their fathers or grandmothers who were taking care of them, while we were shooting. And [where we could] run to them during lunch, breaks, or whenever we could.

Even though it was really tiring to shoot and work for almost 16 hours a day, and still breastfeed, it was also a joy to meet the babies and be together with our families during the two-month period we were shooting in the Amazon.

Other than that, to shoot in the Amazon Rain Forest is always a challenge. We had to be flexible because we’d have some days that rained over five times. We had storm days. Our set almost flew on it. We also had the Amazon River drying more than a meter-and-a-half every day. We had to shoot on boats.

I had the challange of directing two kids in a foreign language, and sometimes having to make 13 takes in order to get the acting I was looking for.

We also had the cultural challenge and joy of having a crew from Brazil, Colombia, France, and Cuba working together.

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

BS: We have a very recent and great public cinema fund in Brazil, FSA [The Audiovisual Sector Fund], made by Lula and Dilma Rousseff, in which a tax of every film ticket we get goes to the fund, as well as a tax on every film shown on the TVs, cellphones, tablets, computers, and [On Demand platforms] in Brazil. With this fund we can finance the major part of our cinematography, and because of it, we got to make this film.

We also won Public Film Funds from the State of São Paulo through the public enterprise of water, Sabesp, and from São Paulo’s Secretary of Culture through the film agency Spcine.

We also have won the Ibermedia Fund, made with public investments by all Latin American countries plus Spain and Portugal, to develop the script and to produce the film, and the Cinema du Monde and Ile de France Region funds in France.

We also won the prizes to finish the film from Cine en Construction at Cinelatino Film Festival in Toulouse, and at BAL/BAFICI in Argentina.

We were totally free to make the film we believed in, and that’s where, I believe, the core of its strength lives.

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

BS: It’s a very important recognition of our work, and we’re extremely happy with it. We hope this will bring the film to every corner of the world, and touch as many minds and hearts as possible.

We also hope it will help us get financing more quickly on our next films!

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

BS: I was very scared when I discovered I was pregnant the year we were supposed to start the shooting, and Thierry Lenouvel, our French producer, was very nice. He comforted me by saying that the baby would bring us luck, that it would be the biggest joy of my life, that I could bring him to the set, and indeed he was right. The script I rewrote after giving birth was much deeper and stronger than before, and we won almost every prize we applied for after he was born.

Ram Devineni,  the Indian producer of my first film, “Bollywood Dream,”  believed in me when I was 22 with a script in my hands and was willing to go to India to shoot it. Anurag Kashyap saw my first film, loved it, and inspired me to go to Cannes in 2012 with this new film script. That’s how I met Thierry Lenouvel, our French co-producer, and Daniel Garcia, our Colombian co-producer, and started this journey. Leonardo Mecchi and Ibirá Machado, my production partners in Brazil, [also gave great advice].

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

BS: We don’t need to choose between a professional career and motherhood; we can do both. We just need a support network.

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

BS: I’m very inspired by the films of Lucrecia Martel, especially how she works with sound design and out of frame actions. I also love the work of Claire Denis and Agnès Varda, for their originality, strength, honesty, and sensibility.

I’m also very inspired by the work of Gena Rowlands, Giulietta Masina, and Anna Magnani, even though they [aren’t credited] as directors on the films they helped to create.

And I’ve just started a distribution company in Brazil, called Descoloniza Filmes, together with my partner Ibirá Machado, to distribute films made by women, especially from periferic countries, in Brazil. [I came up with the idea for the company] after noticing that even though women directors have been a crescent influence on film festivals, they still haven’t found enough space in the Brazilian commercial film circuit.

W&H: Hollywood and the global film industry are 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 are your thoughts on the #TimesUp movement and the push for equality in the film business?

BS: It’s extremely important. If we can make those changes in the film industry, maybe we can change the world [emotionally] and eventually change the world systemically. I hope we’ll do so and the next generations will live in a less oppressive world.