Alison Maclean’s credits include “Crush,” “Jesus’s Son,” and “Kitchen Sink.” She was born in Canada and raised in New Zealand.

“The Rehearsal” will premiere at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival on September 9.

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

AM: Story-wise, “The Rehearsal” is about a young, naïve drama student who puts himself in a morally compromised position by using his young girlfriend’s family sex scandal as material for the end of year show. That’s the bare bones. The film is interested in how art uses life and vice versa.

W&H: What drew you to this story?

AM: I was actively looking for material that would get me back to New Zealand to make a film again — my last, “Kitchen Sink,” was made in 1989.

I was drawn to Eleanor Catton’s book because it’s brazenly original and female; it offered an opportunity to look at young people in a state of becoming, trying out possible selves, both in life and in acting.

I liked the idea that the thing these kids are training to do is the thing we’re watching.

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

AM: This is a film that’s more interested in rehearsal and the messy process of creation than in the final show.

The ending has a degree of mystery and abstraction and I hope people will embrace that — be willing to sit with their own interpretation of what’s happening.

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

AM: The biggest challenge had to do with finding a structure to support a multi-layered, multi-character story — to keep a richness of detail and specificity without losing forward momentum. The edit was hard because a number of scenes expanded during the shoot and there were so many possible ways for it to cohere — or not.

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

AM: The New Zealand Film Commission was the main investor. They insisted that most, if not all, cast and crew were New Zealanders but, beyond that, they allowed us an unusual degree of freedom to make the film we wanted to make — the kind that’s hard to achieve in the U.S.

I feel lucky to have had the opportunity.

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

AM: I’m excited to show the film to a North American audience for the first time and, more personally, it’s meaningful because I grew up in Ottawa.

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

AM: Best advice: Do it as if you know what you’re doing (and you probably do know what you’re doing).

Worst advice: I can’t think of a pithy phrase but I’m conscious there are an awful lot of rules in filmmaking, especially around screenwriting. I definitely believe in rules, the self-imposed kind, but a lot of the prevailing “shoulds” end up making me feel inhibited.

You look at a film like “Mulholland Drive,” that’s so beloved at this point, and it breaks so many rules — tonally, structurally and in its approach to storytelling — and it’s made with great actors who weren’t stars at the time. The freedom of that film inspires me.

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

AM: Keep making stuff — even if it’s a five-minute short. I learned that lesson the hard way, letting years go by doing rewrites and waiting for actors to read my scripts.

I would say my peak experiences as a director have been in the short film, where I’ve felt truly free. Ideas I’ve generated in shorts have ended up detonating years later in longer projects. After many years of development and director-for-hire work, I finally made a short in 2012, “The Professor,” based on a Lydia Davis story: it was so liberating to follow my own instincts again.

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

AM: I’d say “Beau Travail” by Claire Denis. It’s mysterious and elemental — operatic at times and full of longing. I don’t fully understand how it hangs together. It’s a woman looking at men and it’s full of tenderness.

The director, the DP Agnes Godard, and the actors working in perfect, instinctive sync. It has one of the most sublime endings of any film I know.

W&H: Have you seen opportunities for women filmmakers increase over the last year due to the increased attention paid to the issue? If someone asked you what you thought needed to be done to get women more opportunities to direct, what would be your answer?

AM: It’s hard to say because the bias is so internalized, almost unconscious, but I do see it opening up a bit. The disparity is glaring and on everyone’s radar by now.

Australia has introduced some radical [measures], but it’s harder shifting attitudes in risk-averse Hollywood. But every time a smart, masterful film like Maren Ade’s “Toni Erdmann” gets made, it opens the field for all of us.