Eva Husson is a writer and a director. Her short “Hope to Die” gained international recognition, including nominations at the Student Academy Awards, the American Society of Cinematographers, and numerous prizes and screenings at festivals around the world. She made her feature debut with 2015’s “Bang Gang: A Modern Love Story.”
“Girls of the Sun” began screening at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival on September 6.
W&H: Describe the film for us in your own words.
EH: “Girls of the Sun” tells the story of Bahar, once a Kurdish lawyer, now a Captain in the Kurdish guerrilla. On the eve of a major battle, she recounts her story to a French female journalist, Mathilde, from the moment she got captured by religious extremists and became a sex slave, to the way she became a fighter.
W&H: What drew you to this story?
EH: On August 3, 2014, about 7,000 Yazidi women and children were captured by ISIS in Iraq. When I learned some of them had escaped and were fighting this new form of fascism, I felt the story had to be told on the big screen. I wanted people to understand their journey — to understand from within what they had gone through from a female perspective.
W&H: What do you want people to think about when they are leaving the theater?
EH: To this day, unfortunately, some of these Yazidi women are still in captivity. If the movie can help raise awareness, so that they don’t fall into oblivion, that would be precious. People need to know what happened to them: they need to hear about their extraordinary courage, and also understand how far we are from any equality between men and women in most of the world.
We need to understand that there’s still so much to fight for. And that any victory is a victory for women around the world.
W&H: What was the biggest challenge in making the film?
EH: I had two major challenges when making the film: first of all, it was impossible to shoot the movie in Iraq because the situation was too dangerous, and too unstable at the time, so we had to film in the only country where the landscape was the same as Kurdistan, in Georgia. But that meant that access to Kurdish actors was nonexistent there, so we had to fly actors from all over Europe and the Middle East, with all the problems that came with it: casting in seven different countries, the visas, casting within the Georgian Kurdish community, which is quite discreet.
The second major problem was money: a movie filmed half in Kurdish, centered on war but with a female director and a female lead, well, let’s say that we got probably 30 percent less funding than if the equation had had a male lead and a male director. We almost cancelled the shoot the week before prep started — the money was not all there, but my producer Didar Domehri couldn’t let it go. She took an enormous risk by going ahead and betting on the fact that we would get enough to finish the film, and I rewrote a lot to make it fit into a tiny schedule for a war film, 37 days.
As a consequence, the shooting was extremely hard. We were cutting corners everywhere, but now it makes me even prouder to see what we could pull off for under €4 million. Some critics have even written it’s a big budget!
W&H: How did you get your film funded? Share some insights into how you got the film made.
EH: How we financed the film is really a testament to my producer’s relentless pugnacity. The French system is a little peculiar. Mainly, it was thanks to Adeline Fontan Tessaur at Elle Driver (International Sales), who read the script two hours after receiving it and made a generous offer right then; our distributor Wild Bunch; the European entity Eurimages, who came after we decided to shoot anyway, and was also very generous; Canal Plus (French TV), who was already on board with my first film “Bang Gang: A Modern Love Story”; and then a very complex mix of co-producers (with Belgium, Switzerland, and France) and Soficas.
W&H: What inspired you to become a filmmaker?
EH: My parents. They were real film lovers and I saw countless movies as a child and a teen. I remember being enthralled by the Golden Age of Hollywood and all the amazing comedies with strong women like “Bringing Up Baby.” I have a passion for Katharine Hepburn as a result.
W&H: What’s the best and worst advice you’ve received?
EH: Best advice was financial and came from a female Iranian mentor when I was living in LA: save 20 percent of your income, even if it’s $100, and always live slightly below your means. Be frugal. That might sound trivial, but when you’re a filmmaker it can take years to start making a living with films — it took me 15 years — so that advice gave me the freedom to live off my savings from my day jobs whenever times were dire, and keep on being a filmmaker.
Worst advice: “You should be careful about being so bossy.” Fuck that. As a woman director, you’re going against what’s expected from you as a woman anyway. During the shoot of my first feature I had a six-month infant with me, and believe me, the last thing on earth I needed to pay attention to was whether or not I was bossy. It was physically very hard to be on set, I had given birth not long before, I gave everything I could to the film, and the rest of my energy needed to go to my son. The more women filmmakers there will be, the less women will have to answer to ridiculous expectations.
W&H: What advice do you have for other female directors?
EH: Be fearless. Be pragmatic. Be lucid: it is tough out there. Just be aware of it. Do not waste too much energy on feeling sorry for yourself — it won’t change a thing and that will backfire. Be aware that, whether you like it or not, you have a responsibility to all of the other women: be exemplary. That will go a long way for any younger woman coming after you. We are connected.
Never apologize for your strength.
And last but not least: always follow your guts and your values. The profession is violent. It’s just the nature of the beast, and the only way to keep your head high even in the darkest times — and they will come — is to know you did all of this for the right reasons: because you believed in it, and because it was necessary.
W&H: Name your favorite woman-directed film and why.
EH: Without hesitation, “The Piano” by Jane Campion. That movie swept me away. Such power. Such depth. And the fact that Campion won the Palme d’Or when I was a teenager was most likely crucial in my self-confidence: if a woman could direct such a movie and receive such recognition, I could follow the same path.
For years, I watched her journey closely. Whenever I had to make a career decision, I would ask myself, “What would Jane do?” Of course, in retrospect, I had no idea how hard it was for her. It’s worth reading her heartbreaking interview from May 2018 in The Guardian [which addresses how difficult her journey was]. But believe me, when I was myself in official competition at Cannes last May, she was very present in my mind. She’s been some sort of intellectual guardian angel to me. I hope I get to meet her one day.
W&H: Hollywood and the global film industry are in the midst of undergoing a major transformation. What differences have you noticed since the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements launched?
EH: Oh dear. This is a tough one for me, because I feel that — unfortunately — we did not quite experience the #MeToo and #TimesUp movement the same way in France. To very briefly sum up the situation there, I think we’re not ready yet, and it breaks my heart to say it. I sense such negativity when those subjects are brought up.
Luc Besson is involved in a rape case, but what newspaper is talking about it? The New York Times. On the other hand, since I went to film school at AFI in the U.S., I’ve always followed American news closely, and I’ve been aware of a rising tide for the past five years. I see a lot of positive actions geared towards women, or more powerful women being able to do what men have done for over a hundred years: to work with their peers, and to be able to work from within their communities to open up to the rest of the industry.
I’ve been closely watching the work of directors and showrunners like Shonda Rhimes, Ava DuVernay, Issa Rae, and Jill Soloway, and the way they’ve given access to TV directing to an entire generation of women. They’re essential to the industry, and I am very grateful to see that happening at the same time that my own career is taking off. It’s inspiring and empowering.
