Michela Occhipinti is an Italian director and producer. She traveled throughout South America to film and produce “Viva la Pepa! (Give Us Back the Constitution)” in 2003 and later filmed a “Sei Uno Nero” in Malawi in 2008. From 2005 to 2007, she worked with Italian channel RAI 2 to direct various reports on immigration issues. Her first feature documentary, “Letters from the Desert (Eulogy to Slowness),” participated in over 80 festivals worldwide.“Flesh Out” is her first feature film.

“Flesh Out” will premiere at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival on April 27.

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

MO: It is the story of a young woman who is promised in marriage to a man chosen by her family. She has to gain a great amount of weight in a short time in order to please her future husband and comply with the traditional beauty standards of Mauritania.

“Flesh Out” is about body transformation, the pressures put on women bodies everywhere in the world, and the gap between the freedom we perceive and our actual freedom.

W&H: What drew you to this story?

MO: A few years ago, I was looking at the mirror and noticed the lines on my face. I was struck because it was the first visible sign that time had passed, and that gave me a sense of decay.

Then, of course, it had to do with aesthetics and my body transforming, so I started observing in a much more profound way what women do to their bodies to stick to crazy beauty standards that are different everywhere and change constantly.

I thought this was a good story to turn things upside down a little and maybe start a more complex reflection.

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

MO: I hope they will ask themselves questions. When I first read about gavage, I thought it seemed quite crazy, but a second later I realized that it is just the opposite side of the mirror.

I hope that [at least one] girl [leaves] the film thinking that if models change so much from country to country, and here I have to be thin but somewhere else girls have to be full, these standards cancel each other out—they actually do not exist anymore.

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

MO: Finding the protagonist and explaining to all the people who were involved in the film that it was not about criticizing their society but, in fact, criticizing my society [using theirs as a lens].

Another great challenge, but also a beautiful one, was making a low budget film with a crew of only eight. Each one of us had to take on much more than our actual job, but I had the luck to work with some extraordinary people!

On a personal level, the greatest challenge was staying away from my little daughter for 47 straight days. This industry, like many others, is not particularly parent-friendly.

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

MO: We started participating in a few festivals beginning in 2013 by pitching the idea of the film. We found a lot of interest, but nobody was ready to start the financing because they were skeptical. [As I was not a well-known filmmaker], it was difficult to convince possible partners of what my intentions and point of view were, so the process was long. But that gave me the chance to go to Mauritania a few times and start writing a more detailed and longer subject with co-writer Simona Coppini that was based on those travels.

The kick off was the slate fund of Media’s Creative Europe, and from there we had the financing of the Italian Ministry of Culture, then of Rai Cinema, then of the international sales Films Boutique and other partners.

Producers Marta Donzelli and Gregorio Paonessa of Vivo Film built the financing step by little step. It was a risky film: there were no big names known by audiences, and it was to be shot in a complicated country with non-professional actors in an Arab dialect.

I think any other producers would have quit. They showed a lot of belief in the project and an enormous amount of patience, since the whole process lasted around seven years with a few pauses in between.

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

MO: Actually it was a coincidence. I did not really know what I wanted to do as a job when I was young. I wanted to write, or at least try. When I left home and moved to Milan at 23, I found a job at a publishing company selling advertising spaces, so I would write sometimes in the evening at home.

[After I discovered] that I was no good at writing a book but was still passionate about stories, I quit my job and started [an internship] at an advertising company as a copywriter, which was really interesting and fun, but I was looking for something else. Then by coincidence I moved to London and started working in production and research for advertising and documentary. I moved back to Rome and started also working on films, always in production, assistant direction, and casting for many years.

Finally, very late at the age of 35, I decided to start doing what I really wanted to do from the start: tell stories, but through images. With my savings I bought a camera, took a year off, and traveled throughout South America where I shot my first documentary. It started all from there. And slowly I started making the films I really wanted to make.

I hope this inspires someone who feels insecure, just as I felt when I was young. It is quite natural not to have everything clear from a young age, [and if that happens to you], just try and do many things until you discover what your real passion is. There are no rules about what you want to become and when.

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

MO: The best advice was from the first producer I worked for, a fantastic woman called Junko Takao. It was back in the mid ’90s in London. I was working for a Japanese production company as a researcher, and she was listening to me asking questions over the phone. When I hung up, she taught me which questions to ask and how to ask them in order to really get the information I was looking for. I am still very grateful for that advice—it is still so useful!

I cannot really think about the worst advice. Maybe it was when I came back to Rome a couple of years later, at my first interview with a production company. When asked what I wanted to do in life, I said I wanted to be a director, to which the reply was that I was too old. I was 28. But in fact, I do not regard that as the worst advice, but maybe the weirdest. I eventually got to be a director when the time was right for me.

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

MO: I really don’t know. I don’t feel like I’m in a position to give advice, and it would depend too much on the person.

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

MO: I am terrible at making lists of favorites of any kind because the choices are always too vast and making one would be unjust. It is impossible for me to name even a single favorite female director, as it would be for male directors. Too many names come to my mind, but then I know there are so many I am forgetting.

I surfed the net and was reminded once again of the huge quantity of amazing films from immensely talented women directors, of which many I still have not seen. So sorry for not answering, but thank you for the question, because it gives me the chance to do a lot of catching-up!

W&H: It’s been a little over a year since the reckoning in Hollywood and the global film industry began. What differences have you noticed since the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements launched? 

MO: Due to the kind of work I do, I am extremely marginal to this industry, so I do not know what has changed exactly. What I did notice though, is that most important festivals, beginning with this year’s Berlinale and Tribeca, are succeeding in gender equality.

I hope that this can become something natural and fluid in the near future. I hope it will become more about the equal consideration of women rather than just being about numbers.