“Sibyl” is director Justine Triet’s third feature. She directed “Age of Panic” in 2013 and “In Bed with Victoria” in 2016. All three films screened at the Cannes Film Festival.

“Sibyl” will premiere at the 2019 New York Film Festival on October 5.

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

JT: While trying to find calm and inspiration to write her next novel, Sibyl (Virginie Efira) meets Margot (Adèle Exarchopoulos), a woman who plunges her into an abysmal chasm and blows up her life.

It’s a film that shows us how fiction can help us live our life as a substitute for the burden of reality. In other words, it shows us how we can reinvent our life to escape the inevitability of reality — for better and for worse.

W&H: What drew you to this story?

JT: I always want to tell a woman’s story in multiple ways. I want to show female characters with all their subtleties and differences, women who are troubled, and women who are in search of freedom.

In the foreground of the film, I wanted to show two women, with one influencing the other and vice versa. I wanted to find a profession for Sibyl that would allow me to get into transgression and how a character escapes mentally.

I wanted language to be a central focus, and for Sibyl’s identification with Margot to generate a sense of giddiness. It was interesting that Sibyl is a therapist and Margot an actress because one’s in the shadow and the other’s in the light — Margot brought a certain “landscape” to the film.

In the background of the film, I wanted to tell a passionate love story, the memory of this passion, the marks it left behind, and the lies around it — made real by the child born from it.

The nerve center of the film is Sibyl having to deal creatively with a past that she has not seen; the film makes both the viewer and Sibyl see it for the first time, thanks to the fiction she’s creating.

The idea was to build the story by going back and forth in little touches between Sibyl’s past and present. It’s the kaleidoscopic portrait of a complex woman who’s sometimes immoral and in search of freedom.

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

JT: As a viewer, I love to come out of a film feeling lost, like I was without any references. I like to be immersed in that feeling, and that because of it, I will keep asking myself questions. For me, films remain a physical and mental experience. I am bored by message films.

I like the idea of making films where boundaries cannot be defined; the topic should never take precedence over the experience. We have to first experience the film in order to start thinking about what we went through.

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

JT: The biggest challenge was to try and keep the viewer connected — in spite of a very free narrative form — between the first part that’s very cerebral and the second part, which is more action-driven and takes place on the island.

I also wanted to take the viewers to uncomfortable and disturbing places without ever losing them. The other challenge was with the visuals. I was aiming to have a better shot breakdown, to prepare better for the shoot without ever taking anything away from the actors’ performances.

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

JT: On this film, it was quite complicated because its premise baffled some of the funding sources, and people who — because of my previous film — were expecting a straightforward comedy, not a film that took such liberties.

We also depended on the availability of the many actors involved. Therefore, we had no flexibility with regards to the shooting dates, and needed to raise money in a very short time. So the money was essentially raised through TV channels and distributors.

The Centre National de Cinématographie (CNC), the French government body that gives public funding to select film projects, turned us down. We had help from producer Marie-Ange Luciani and just a few weeks before the shoot started as we were short of the 150,000 Euros [about $163,5000 USD] needed to shoot in Stromboli, an island in Italy.

The film was made for a little more than 5 million Euros [about $5.5 million USD]. The actors agreed to lower their salaries so the money could be invested in other parts of making the picture. This is obviously necessary for this type of film.

W&H: What inspired you to become a filmmaker?

JT: I came to cinema through editing. I loved editing well before I ever held a camera.

Then, there were two very important films which gave me the desire to film, “The Mother and the Whore” by Jean Eustache, and “Faces” by John Cassavetes.

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

JT: The best advice: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” Samuel Beckett.

The worst: To pick a particular actor in order to increase box office. Whenever I hear that, on the one hand it’s usually wrong, and on the other hand, such calculations are often off.

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

JT: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”

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

JT: I chose one filmmaker who’s dead and one who’s alive.

Shirley Clarke’s “Portrait of Jason” is a cult film for me. I still remember the first time I saw it. It’s one of these films that left a strong impression on me when I was young, for their political as much as their aesthetic power. It reminds me a lot of Jean Eustache’s “Numéro Zéro,” in which his mother tells the story of her life, just like that, facing the camera.

I admire Maren Ade a lot. I discovered Sandra Hüller, whom I cast in my film, thanks to Maren Ade’s sublime “Toni Erdmann.”

W&H: What differences have you noticed in the industry since the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements launched?

JT: Regarding harassment, I think it has freed women’s voices, and thankfully outside the film world as well. I remember some teachers at the Beaux-Arts Academy who used to openly hit on female students. There were lots of them, and it did not shock anyone. That’s the way it was. Today, that’s no longer possible at all.

For the rest, the fact that women are a minority or even absent from certain parts of the film industry is no longer a “non-subject.” It exists, it’s being talked about, and even if it will take time for things to change, it has started because at each committee meeting, in schools, everywhere, people think in terms of “parity.”

Even if they’re against it, even if they protest, they talk about it. It exists. When I was 20 years old — 20 years ago — it did not exist.

The reality of money was basically ignored. In France, the 50/50 collective makes it possible to communicate in a very pragmatic way about the incredible lack of women in important executive positions, about the difference in wages. And all these things became suddenly and clearly intolerable.

I remember one day in 2000, when I was a fine arts student at the Beaux-Arts Academy in Paris, I was invited to participate in a women’s exhibit. I found that revolting, as if being a woman exempted me from participating in an exhibit about my work without putting my gender in the foreground, and only allowed me a specific spot in the women’s “parking lot.”

At the time, there was not really any awareness of this because people did not talk about it, and feminism had almost become something suspicious. There was a lot of misogyny, but it was tolerated by men, and by women, who as a result had to be able to cope with it.

Today is the beginning of an awakening, and what’s really new is the solidarity among women themselves. I would like for you to ask the same question to men because feminism is not only a women’s business — it also concerns men, in my opinion.

After all, it’s the beginning of an awakening. There is still a lot to do.