“It’s not heavy, it’s life”: An Interview with Stéphanie Chuat and Véronique Reymond

As some of you may know, I recently came aboard as a Film & TV staff writer for StageBuddy.com

I won’t often do this but here but I was particularly proud of this interview and excited at the opportunity to speak with such exciting young filmmakers. Here is an excerpt from my interview with Stéphanie Chuat and Véronique Reymond, directors of “The Little Bedroom.”

oc522886_p3001_143773

Stépanie Chuat, left, and Véronique Reymond, right, at the Locarno Film Festival in 2010

I’m not so familiar with the atmosphere in Switzerland but I’m wondering if you faced any challenges as female filmmakers and if so can you talk a little about that?

Stéphanie Chuat: The first challenge we had actually was not connected to being women, it was the subject of the movie. The producers at the beginning said “nobody will go to the movies to see this,” but the film was a huge success in Switzerland so the producers were completely wrong. 

Véronique Reymond: They said it was too heavy and we always said “no, no, no, it’s not heavy, it’s life.” and this was the most difficult thing. But afterwards, yes. It’s difficult to be a woman because you have to deal with how to direct, how to be the boss, it’s an every day kind of readjustment. We very much like working with men though. 

Stéphanie Chuat: Sometimes men need to tell you how you should do things, you know, they have this patronizing thing which, I don’t know makes them feel secure, but sometimes it’s difficult when the producer comes to set and he speaks to the editor who is a man and he doesn’t speak to you and little things like that — I remember on “The Little Bedroom” one of the producers came and was speaking to the sound guy about some stuff which concerned us. But you know in Switzerland, the Quartz (the Swiss Film Award), which is like the Oscars, since 2009 there were nearly only women who were winning the best fiction film, 4 to 2, I think, so it’s not so difficult. 

To read the full interview, click here. And to see my review of the film, click here.