Nicole Palo’s credits include the 2005 short “Anna Doesn’t Know” and the 2008 feature “Get Born.”

“Emma Peeters” will premiere at the 2018 Venice Film Festival on September 8.

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

NP: It’s the story of a girl who is tired of enduring hardship. Emma Peeters has not made it as an actress and she’s turning 35, which she believes is the expiry date in the business. So, she decides to take her destiny in her own hands by acting upon the only thing she can control: her own end. She plans to commit suicide on her birthday.

During her preparation, she meets a funeral employee who, against all odds, is willing to help her. A strange romance starts between them on the pretense of making Emma’s death arrangements. But they are so good at hiding their feelings that they could well bring Emma’s project to completion.

It’s a film about the liberating power of taking life less seriously and what happens when you decide to — literally — “let go.”

W&H: What drew you to this story?

NP: The idea of the story came to me at a moment of my life when I felt I was going nowhere, and when it seemed everything I was doing was doomed to fail. The character of Emma Peeters grew out of my frustration and the fantasy, I believe quite common, of chucking it all in. I imagined what would happen if someone actually took the bull by its horns and decided to end it for good.

I started writing “Emma Peeters” to let off steam. I found satisfaction in developing the personality of Emma and what she was going through with irony. Emma Peeters’ frustration is universal. What she decides to do as a consequence is a fable and is largely related to her temperament. Like a present-day Madame Bovary, she suffers from the dissatisfaction of someone who dreamed too much and refuses reality for what it is — someone for whom losing her ideal means losing herself. In planning her suicide, Emma finds the way to liberation.

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

NP: I wish the audience could leave the theater smiling. For those who are not completely happy of the way their life turned out, I hope my film can be like a therapeutic pill to help them lighten up. And for the others who have never felt frustrated or unhappy — if they are out there — I hope they will be entertained by my miserable character and feel even better about themselves.

Joking aside, my intention is to make the viewers feel good, and to entertain them while giving them food for thought.

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

NP: The biggest challenge was to find the right comic tone when dealing with a subject like suicide. This is one of the reasons why writing [the film] took a long time. When I portrayed Emma’s unhappiness with too much realism, the story turned to drama and when I treated it too lightly, her motivation to commit suicide became too weak. The solution was in character development.

The reality depicted in the film is subjective. It is seen through Emma’s eyes. For her, a small event takes on huge and potentially fatal proportions. For ordinary people, her misadventures are not strong enough to justify wanting to take one’s life.

The other major difficulty in the script was to maintain a goal as absolute as suicide while love comes into the picture. Here again, the solution was in the characters. Alex had to be odd enough so Emma could imagine he would support her project, would respect her choice, and be ready to help her go all the way.

While shooting the actors, we pushed comedy at times and emotion at others. The delicate dosing between the two was done in the editing phase, with my close collaborator, Frédérique Broos. We also had to find subtle ways to shed light on Emma’s psychology and her motivation for suicide. The idea that Emma “fantasizes” was translated literally in editing: she sees herself as a movie heroine.

This enabled us to link the profession of actress to a character trait of Emma. Her suicide project suddenly became another of her fantasies, a fantasy that would have no chance of becoming true without Alex’s intervention.

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

NP: In Europe, we are lucky to have public funding for cinema. The production funding of our national film institute, Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles, was the basis of the film financing, then came economic regional funds (Screen Brussels), private funds through the Tax shelter scheme and television co-production (Proximus, RTBF). In Belgium, available national funds are rarely sufficient, so we need to co-produce with another country. Historically, for French-speaking Belgium, film co-production is done with France. But this has been more and more difficult over the past years. And for “Emma Peeters,” we hit a brick wall. The idea of co-producing with Canada unblocked the situation.

My producers, Gregory Zalcman and Alon Knoll (Take Five, Belgium) met Serge Noël (Possibles Média, Canada) in Cannes and they put together the co-production. They obtained all the available funding in Canada (SODEC, Téléfilm Canada, Radio Canada, Tax credit) and also the supranational fund Eurimages. Having Monia Chokri in the cast as Emma was of course a strong asset.

Convincing public institutions is probably slightly different than convincing film studios, but I think they are some common traits. First, you should have the best possible script and manage to convey the absolute necessity of having it made — and preferably by you –and you should have a global creative vision. I made a website with a a video-pitch to translate the particular tone and visual ideas of the film. An interesting cast also helps. I say interesting because the actors do not necessarily need to be famous, but should bring out the film’s originality.

I think Monia and Fabrice Adde make an atypical romantic couple that fits the quirky comic tone of the film. Both actors combine dramatic and comic talent. I found with Monia the rare gem that could incarnate Emma’s depth, personality, and humorous nature. She is well-known in French-speaking Canada and in France. Fabrice Adde is not considered “bankable” by the industry, even though he played the part of the leader of the Canadian trappers in Alejandro Iñarritu’s “The Revenant.” He was typecast for Alex and brought to the character his eccentric touch.

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

NP: As a child, I first wanted to become a writer, because I loved reading. Then, when I turned 11, I started watching a lot of films on a cable channel and taping them on VHS — this tells you I’m not so young anymore. The channel played retrospectives of Nouvelle Vague films, Woody Allen, Fellini, and so forth.

I saw all the classics at an early age and I started to “think in film.” When I listened to music, I saw the video in front of my eyes; when I read books, I saw the characters in motion, living out the stories. I also wanted to be an actor. I was in the school plays. But unlike Emma, I realized when I was 18 that I would be utterly unhappy in the profession, as I am a control freak and would have a hard time depending on someone else’s desire. It took some more hesitation before I engaged in filmmaking.

I started by doing safe studies — journalism in parallel of scriptwriting and film history at University– and a safe job for the European Union MEDIA Programme. As you can see, I’m not the reckless adventurous type. But one day you wake up and tell yourself: I have to do it. And you quit everything and take your chance at it.

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

NP: The best advice came from an expert at a scriptwriting workshop: “Make your own mistakes.” He had planned to give me all kinds of remarks on my script and after hearing my presentation decided not to do so. In substance, he said that I was probably going to make mistakes, but that I had to go through them myself. He also said that I needed as much freedom as I could to make the film I imagined. The more personal the film could be, the better.

The worst advice came from a producer who thought my ideas were too ambitious compared to the budget at my disposal. “Don’t mistake your dreams for reality.” Well, dreaming and then trying to materialize the dream into a film, that’s the director’s job. And about the money issue, I believe good ideas are not more expensive than bad ones.

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

NP: Believe in yourself. It’s commonplace to say that, but you really need to have faith in yourself because a lot of people are going to make you feel you are out of place, doubt your competence, and try to undermine you.

And the other commonplace advice is “be yourself.” You don’t have to become a tyrant or a warrior to have your place in the business. But this implies choosing the right people around you who respect your work and your method.

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

NP: “An Angel at My Table” by Jane Campion. I must have been 14 when I saw it in the cinema. This film made a great impression on me. No other film has tackled with such strength what an extremely shy person goes through, and the cruelness of the world for those who are considered different. In the drama, there is also light.

Campion is one of the best directors, male or female. Her films exude sensuality, emotion, and freedom. It seems her female characters want to break out of the screen.

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?

NP: There is more attention given to films made by women, but I think we should not focus on what makes women different as filmmakers. For me, there is no such thing as “films made by women.” We are individuals, artists in our own right, just like men are. “Women” is not a category of film, like sci-fi or costume drama.

There is danger with positive discrimination because it implies that we women are not totally capable and need a boost. We have heard a festival director saying, “We cannot help it if women films are not as good as those made by men.” Of course that’s shocking. And curiously this idea is not only supported by men, but by many influential women in the business. So, the only thing we can do is be stubborn, stand strong, and continue to make films and do our best.

I guess we are in a transition phase. And hopefully soon, there will just be films made by human beings.