Isabel Coixet

Isabel Coixet, based in Barcelona, has made 14 feature films, many of them award-winning. Her Elisa & Marcela,about two women who married in Spain — in 1901 — when one of them adopted a male identity, was in 2018 the first Netflix film selected to compete for the Berlinale’s Golden Bear.

Isabel has her own production company, Miss Wasabi, which makes narrative films, documentaries and commercials; and is also an activist — a member of CIMA, the powerful Spanish group that in 2010 kickstarted this iteration of European women’s film activism when it brought together women working in the audiovisual sector in Europe to create the Compostela Declaration. Later, Isabel became Honorary President of the European Women’s Audiovisual Network that grew out of the declaration. She was also a member of the Cannes Camera d’Or Jury, led by Agnes Varda, in 2013.

I interviewed Isabel by Skype, at the Te Auaha cinema in Wellington, on September 19 2018, the 125th anniversary of New Zealand women getting the vote, after we screened The Bookshop, her 2017 feature that won Goya Awards for Best Film, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay.

I think it was the first time anyone tried this kind of Q&A in New Zealand. It was certainly the first time I’d tried it, inspired by So Mayer’s interview of Cameraperson’s Kirsten Johnson at the BFI. And I couldn’t have done it without the strong support of New Zealand Film School’s then-head tutor, Ness Simons, best-known for Pot Luck, the beautiful, funny and multi-award-winning webseries.

I had a feeling Isabel would be just right for this experiment. And just wonderful. And she was. My warm thanks to her and to Ness; and to Tilly Lloyd for the question about class (I'm sad I missed her excellent question about  the cardies in The Bookshop).

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I started by asking Isabel about how she came to make The Bookshop.

Isabel Coixet About fifteen years ago I was in London and I went into a bookstore and it was there on the table. It was a new edition. But you know I have to say I had never heard of Penelope Fitzgerald. But I love books. I love bookstores. And — I don’t know — there was something when I read the explanation and the back cover. And I just went home and I started the book and you know it was four o’clock, and then I finished it like at nine. And I was really mesmerized by it. I mean I can’t really explain it logically. I can now but at that moment I was just, I was fascinated. I thought this woman [Florence, The Bookshop’s protagonist] is me. If I was a widow at that time and my dream was to open a bookstore, all these things that happened to her would happen to me. That’s the truth. I’m an avid reader and as a film director I’m a reader before being a film director. So when I’m reading I’m really reading, I’m not looking for material. I’m not saying ‘OK this will make a good movie or not’. Not at all. OK, sometimes when things are really really really obvious but not even then. When I read I really immerse myself in a book and when I’m looking for material I’m not looking for material in books.

@devt So you had quite a strong identification with the character.

Isabel Coixet Yes. And also it was about her style. I think Penelope Fitzgerald has this really sharp and dry vision of the world. And I really like that. It’s not a sentimental book. In fact the book is hard. It’s much more hard and harsh than the film. But I really like it. Even I like the elements that I had to get rid of when I adapted the book like you know the supernatural presence in the bookstore. I thought that was a really incredible thing. I really liked that but then I had to get rid of it and that was hard. But I couldn’t find a way to give that presence or place in the film. I really regret that. I tried several times, you know, but it never felt it belonged to the film.

@devt I read in an interview that you did with Francine Raveney that the protagonist is one of the characters in all of your films that you felt closest to. And I wondered if, as a part of the adaptation, you were seeing a bookseller as a metaphor for a filmmaker and the kinds of challenges that you had and the courage you had to find to continue as a filmmaker.

Isabel Coixet You never know… not a very conscious way. I found out later. I mean after after I worked for years on the adaptation for instance I spoke with Tina. Tina is Penelope Fitzgerald’s daughter. The Christine character is based on her. She told me a million things about that time when Penelope was working in a bookstore in a little town. She just worked there for six months. And that experience was the source of The Bookshop. But at the same time it’s true, you know, I found in my path to being a director, suddenly a couple of other people, and the butcher tell you things about what you should do or what you shouldn’t do. Everybody’s giving you advice, especially if you’re a woman. It’s like everybody feels entitled to tell you what you have to do or what you shouldn’t do. And since my nature is — you know, inside I’m a seven year old. So I resist people giving me orders or advice or even wisdom.

@devt I also read that this was a story about defeat, about what happens to big ideas in a small society. And later in the article that I read the journalist writes that in the film a creative person is crushed by cruel and small minded parochialism. So when you were doing that were you also thinking of times that you’d been crushed by parochialism in the film industry for instance?

Isabel Coixet Yes, in the film industry. But in life too. I mean in Florence we have two things. We have this woman who has had a sheltered life. And when she enters again into the world of let’s say business or work or real life she’s not prepared at all. But she is there, out there. I think in relationship to myself I realise even if I’m really much more prepared than Florence it’s exactly the same, because you know when you really think what you’re doing is right. Not just right, it’s natural.

For her, she’s very conscious this is a really small dream. She doesn’t want to change the world. She is just ‘OK, that’s what I want to do’. And even this little piece of independence, little piece of really creating something for yourself, even that, as tiny as it is, everybody feels she can’t do it. She’s not allowed to do it. They will not let her do it. And I think in the end she is really aware of what’s happening.

I think for me, even now I’ve done 14 feature films, even now I can see this mentality of ‘you’re not doing what you’re supposed to do’. I remember I started saying I want to be a filmmaker when I was 7. And even now after all these years out there I hear people say ‘Why do you do that?’ And they make you feel like you don’t belong to the world where you’re supposed to belong. But it’s OK. I manage.

@devt I reckon! Is the story about class as well?

Isabel Coixet It is. And one of the things John was always telling me, John Berger [1926–2017], he was always telling me this is this is a classic class story, especially in England where … everywhere your class and your gender are the base of every fight and every everything that is out there in your world. One of the things the Violet character is furious about is that Florence doesn’t belong to the class and their class are only ones allowed to take positions about the world. And that little disruption in their order, it’s the beginning of a tragedy, of Florence’s tragedy.

@devt So when you dedicated the film to John Berger, was it because it was part of a conversation that you had with him?

Isabel Coixet I met John 22 years ago. And since that moment, for me he was my mentor. He read every script I directed or I wrote. We worked together on an exhibiton based on one of his books, ‘From A to X’ and he knew I was trying to do a film based on The Bookshop and in that process there were lots of interruptions. A bunch of things. And some of them they were completely stupid like, you know, you go to a meeting and see this person say, ‘But why, why does the film has to end you know on this horrible note? Why doesn’t [wealthy recluse Edmund] Brundish lend her the money to buy another book store in another town?’

You’re in meetings with all these people with money, the financiers, and they’re telling you the story you should tell instead of the story you want to tell. And I was telling John that’s what happened. He always said, ‘There’s a person in this world who has to do this book. It’s you. Because you really fill the screen and also you know how to really tell Penelope Fitzgerald’s story at her core. But also doing something personal.’ And he was always telling me, ‘Go on. Yes, you should do it. You must do it. You have to do it.’ And he died. I’d just showed him like half an hour of the film. He really liked it. And then one week after [that] he died in Paris and, and you know I felt I had to dedicate the film to him. And this is the second film I have dedicated to him. There is another one called The Secret Life of Words.

@devt So over those 22 years was he your primary mentor?

Isabel Coixet Yes, he was my mentor. He was a mentor for a lot of people I have to say. One of the many many many many beautiful things about John was that he was always supporting people. He was always giving, it was not advice, when he talked to you about a project he was always putting himself in your shoes. He was always directing you but in an incredibly wise way. I mean photographers, sculptors, playwrights. He knew many many many people and he was never afraid to collaborate with people, to give texts and drawings and poems and everything he had, cheese, wine. He was an incredibly generous person, for me he was the most generous person in the world. He still is and every year in Madrid all the Spanish friends he had, we have meetings and you know, we just talk about him.

@devt And did he affect how you portray women?

Isabel Coixet Well I have to say we never talked specifically about that. Of course I read all his books and of course he has a million of them. And even now, one week ago there was this new collection of texts. About encounters. I don’t remember the name of the collection but it’s just out in the bookstores now. It is just little stories about people he met randomly, in trains in bars, in a square, in Rome. But we talked about framing people, not just framing or looking at women.

@devt I get the sense that you adore actors and they adore you. And I wonder what thoughts and advice you have about working with actors.

Isabel Coixet The life of a director is complicated enough. So one of the things I always say is you have to work with the best people for every role. You can’t hire an actor because he or she is a cool or they have followers on Instagram. First of all if you have an instinct to work with an actor, look at all her work or his work. Be very informed about everything they’ve done. And then once you have seen everything you will have a sense of what she or he is good at, the places they will never go. You really have to have a sense of that person. And then once you have seen that, go to a pub and have a beer or wine or whatever and have a sense of that person. Because you have to work long hours with these people and if you don’t really like the person, the actor as a person, it will show. And if that shows in your work then it’s no good.

I’m not a fan of rehearsals at all. I think really good actors don’t need it. With Bill Nighy [who played Edmund Brundish] for instance, I think we had like one day of rehearsals and mainly it was trying the costumes and how to wear them. I was very specific about the way he wanted to work because for me these specific physical traits are really important, the way people move, how they take the space when they enter a room, the way they look or they don’t look to the eyes of the people. For me, all these physical traits make a real person and in that real person you have to find the character.

In this case, working with Emily was fun and I love her. I think she’s an incredible person. She’s talented, she’s intelligent and she’s very humble. That’s not very common. And from watching all her films even when she has a small role, there was a truth I love. And I thought why is this woman not doing like films as the main character? And I sent her the script through with the help of Patricia Clarkson and she knew the book, she loved the script and you can have a very fun conversation with her really and for me that’s key.

@devt And you had quite a fun time with Patricia Clarkson too by the look of it.

Isabel Coixet (laughing) It’s very difficult not to have a fun time with Patricia. She’s a force of nature. She’s very passionate about everything and she’s a drama queen. And I… you know I found this part of her character very amusing. This is the third time we worked together and you know I would love to work with her again because she’s amazing. And also she can play anything and everything.

@devt And I noticed that you work a lot with English and American actors and maybe not so much with Spanish ones. But the crew seemed to be very Spanish and I wondered what reason you have for working so much in English.

Isabel Coixet I was living in the States when I wrote Things I Never Told You. And for me was very natural, it wasn’t a plan. It wasn’t like, ‘Okay now I’m going to work with American actors or with the Canadian or English’. I work in Canada and the States, in Ireland, in Japan. For me, someday maybe I would love to do a film in New Zealand or Australia. You never know. I think one of the reasons I think films are fascinating is because you can really go into the culture of a place when you do a film. And I’m zelig, you could throw me in Japan and I’m Japanese.

@devt And you see yourself as a global citizen?

Isabel Coixet I don’t know, I think the world would be a better place if we didn’t have so many borders and flights and national pride. I guess as a global citizen, we can’t have a national pride, because we’re destroying our planet. So I don’t see the pride there but you know maybe if we see ourselves more as a human race than just, you know, Australian and Spanish and Italian, maybe things will be better. I don’t know.

@devt One of the things that I thought was interesting about you was that you started in advertising, which was your film school and your way of earning freedom. And is that the primary way that you’ve built a sustainable career?

Isabel Coixet Yes. Yeah. I was going to the university and I needed a job. I really needed a job if I wanted to keep studying. When I was a kid I dreamed of making movies, not about making commercials, but by chance I found a job in an advertising agency and I was quite good. So I keep working there but my dream was my primary goal.

And I think film schools are great. Every time I go to a film school and I do a class I think it’s great to see people sharing their dream. In my case there was no one when I was growing up. I never shared that dream with the people around me. But you know anyway I was very focused and even when I was having a successful career in an advertising agency I never, never forgot what I was supposed to do. And the moment I could, I left the agency.

I have to say working on commercials I had the opportunity to work with amazing DOPs. I remember the first shoot I went on. The agency was doing a commercial for a car. I don’t remember the car. But I remember the day, okay. They asked me, ‘Do you want to go on the shoot?’ and I was like, ‘Yeah’. And I went on the set and it was John Alcott there.

John Alcott was the DOP of Stanley Kubrick and he was there in Spain doing a commercial. He didn’t see very well but I saw him moving his face to one of those big lights and and just from the heat he felt on his face he knew how to light the set. And just watching this guy at work… I never took the courage to talk to him. But I spent the whole day — three days — looking at him working and I learned more just seeing him work than in any film school in the world. That’s why I say that was my film school.

@devt It is that story also why you are often your own DOP?

Isabel Coixet I am not my DOP. I’m a camera operator. My DOP is Jean-Claude Larrieu. He’s a French DOP I met doing a commercial in Paris. And you know, since that day we started talking about the films we love and the characters we love, the type of lighting we love, photography, sculpture, books, and he’s my best friend now and we have done seven films together. And also we work in a way that he takes care of the lighting and I take care of the camera and that works perfectly.

And I know that that’s not the norm. Directors normally they are in a chair looking at the monitor. I like chairs and I like lying down a lot, but on set what to do in a chair? So I love to be behind the camera. I love to feel the actors really being much more relaxed, because I’m the person who’s really capturing what they do. And to me that’s my way. You know that’s my path to filmmaking.

@devt And so how do you balance the directing the actors with being behind the camera? I’m not sure I could think both things at once. It’s just normal for you now?

Isabel Coixet I do it. It works. I don’t think it’s that difficult. You talk to them at the same time, when they’re performing for the camera. So you know, they they know what I’m going to do. We rehearse in terms of, ‘Okay you’re going to say this here and then you turn to the other actor and then the camera’s going to…’. I think it’s a choreography. If you know what you want and you have good people with you it’s kind of easy. For me I have to say it’s easier than wasting energy explaining what I want to a cameraperson and then… No. I think it’s better… I can think and I can chew gum at the same time. Not three things but two, two I can manage.

@devt You’re very unusual doing that aren’t you, or are there lots of people in Europe who do who operate their cameras at the same time directing?

Isabel Coixet Yeah. It’s kind of unusual, I think since film schools are so you know, ‘You’re the director, you do that’. They are so, you know, every person has this thing to do on set. They never teach people how to do it so they don’t do it. But I learned to do it and I’m doing it. And there’s another director, Steven Soderbergh, an American director… But no no no, it’s a pity because it’s really fun.

@devt And producers don’t mind? They don’t say you can’t do your job if you are also the camera operator?

Isabel Coixet They complain. You know. But this is what I do. And then unions have to sign a million things. And in the States, you’re working in a union film and you’re not supposed to do it. But they do it anyway.

@devt I read an article the other day about Nicole Holofcener who’s done a film for Netflix, as you have, and found it very freeing, because they pretty much left her alone. Did you have a similar experience?

Isabel Coixet Yeah. And I loved that. The film, Elisa & Marcela, I’m editing now is a film for Netflix and I have to say once they approve a script and they see what’s your vision for the film, they let you do your job. And I think that’s amazing. And for me, I think for lots of directors, it’s what you want.

Lots of producers, they got famous because they have their way to put their prints in a film. But I always remember that Jack Nicholson film when he’s peeing on the floor and saying, ‘Hey I’m just marking my territory’. I always you know I see myself as Jack Nicholson in that film, trying to protect my territory. And if I have to pee on the floor I will. And the good thing about Netflix is that you don’t have to go to the extreme of peeing on the floor because they know they’re amazing at marketing films, they’re putting things out there on the platform but they they admit they don’t know how to make films and that’s why they hire directors.

@devt And so did they hire you for this film or did you take the idea to them?

Isabel Coixet I took the idea to them.

@devt Why did you choose them for this particular one?

Isabel Coixet Because before that I tried … Let’s say this is a project I tried for many many many years to do. And this is a real story of two women who got married in Spain in the north of Spain in a really really rural area in 1901. And let’s say 10 years ago when you go to a producer and say, ‘I want to do a film of these two women,’ you can’t imagine the rejections I had. I have a collection of rejections. Two years ago I took the same script, exactly the same script, to Netflix and they love it and they say, ‘Yeah sure, go ahead’.

@devt Oh wow.

Isabel Coixet Yeah…

@devt So when’s it coming out?

Isabel Coixet Next year. I’m still editing. So now after you finish I’m going to go to the editing room. And I guess March next year, something like this. [2019: Elisa & Marcela is now available on Netflix.]

@devt Well I don’t want to keep you from the editing room but I do want to ask you a little bit about being a woman director and your activist life as president of the European Women’s Audiovisual Network and working with CIMA before then; and why you bother when you’ve got such a rich life and you’re getting your work done.

Isabel Coixet I have to say I’m not as involved. I try to do things I really believe in. And when I hear things like the director of the Venice Film Festival said they just found one woman, an Australian director, for the official selection. When they say they can’t find another film worth being in the official selection that’s bullshit. That can’t be, I’m sorry. It’s not like you select like 20 fucking masterpieces. I mean this, saying that if we do 50:50 they will not be as good.

Come on! Every fucking male filmmaker is not making a masterpiece. I’m not saying every female filmmaker is making masterpieces. It’s not that. I’m just saying, ‘Please, let’s have a little equality here’. So that’s why I was signing this letter to the director of the Venice Film Festival. I try to do very specific things. From my production company, one of the rules is there are a bunch of producers and production companies producing films made by men. What I want to do, if I produce something, a short film or a feature, it has to be a female. I think for me this is the real activism.

And when I heard for instance Reese Witherspoon, this actress was doing these things like Big Little Lies and all this [2019: The second season of Big Little Lies is directed by Andrea Arnold]. I’m like, ‘But the director?’. I mean you’re producing in the name of female empowerment but the directors are men. For me, that’s not activism that’s just bullshit.

So for me activism is lots of practical things. If I see someone struggling to make a documentary and they just need a little bit of money and push to finish it. And for instance this filmmaker I know she’s doing a documentary about the cleaning people, women in towns in Spain. If she needs help I’m going to help her. That’s for me it’s activism.

It’s not big speeches. If the director of the Venice Film Festival is saying bullshit in the press you say ‘What you’re saying doesn’t make any sense. Just come on. Have more women there, at least be aware that the women filmmakers of the world will not agree with you’. That’s my activism and that’s my way to be the world.

@devt And is it also about having women on your crew?

Isabel Coixet Yes. And I think in Elisa & Marcela all the key people in the film were women including my camera assistant and even grips and it was really a female crew.

@devt You could find women to do sound?

Isabel Coixet No. And the director of photography, Jennifer Cox, is this very young director of photography. I produced one of her short films and I think she’s very talented. It was let’s say an 85 percent female crew and we managed and we finished the film on time. I think the film looks amazing and we can do things, you know!

@devt Do you think that a film about women with such a large proportion of the crew being women you actually get a different kind of film?

Isabel Coixet No. But in the film everything has a special touch. And in this case I thought, since the story… you know we have these two girls falling in love and we have a bunch of sex scenes I think it will be much easier to do it with a female crew and it was. It was really very kind of mellow. Yeah. Mellow and no people screaming and it was a very very relaxed time. And I don’t know if you had a blind test you could say this film was made by women. But for us in terms of atmosphere to work in it was easy, great and fun.

@devt Did you have women there who had children as well? I don’t know if it’s come to Europe, the whole thing of having a child care on set or different hours because of people having children to care for?

Isabel Coixet There were lots of women with kids and I know how you manage these things. You juggle with everything. We did it in summer so I think most of the children were on summer camps and things like that. It was the only way.

@devt Because you’d been a mother yourself as a filmmaker haven’t you?

Isabel Coixet Yes. [Long pause.] And it is exhausting. You see they never they never they never ask a male filmmaker if they have kids or they don’t. It’s not relevant.

When Steven Spielberg has like seven kids and nobody asks him ‘So how do you manage with your seven kids to make all these movies you’re doing?’ It’s another backpack you have as a woman. But as always in life you manage.

@devt So just to wind up, we have Ness here who runs the the New Zealand Film School. And I wonder what advice you have for students who are at film school now and Ness may have another question.

Isabel Coixet For me as a director, one of things I feel is more difficult is to really be free, at least in your mind. Total freedom in life, it’s you know, kind of unattainable, but you have to be free in your mind. When you face a film or a script or a little story you want to tell, just first of all you have to know the work of the people who have made amazing films before you. I’m talking about the classics to everything… Sometimes in film schools now I’m really astonished because they just don’t even know the first films of Martin Scorcese or Coppola or Agnès Varda.

And I think you have to know these things, the films before you. You have to in a way be in your mind and be free. You have to have all these things, all these films of the past and present. But you have to have to in a way to be honest about what you think, what you feel and what you do and what you say, too. The moment you have a nice vision about who you are and your point of view about the world then you do something meaningful. That’s all. And also another advice. Never follow the advice of another film director. (Shared laughter.)

@devt And is your advice any different to women who are starting out in film?

Isabel Coixet It will be the same advice, but multiplied by five because, girls, listen, it’s going to be more difficult for you. But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. It’s just you will have to work much more, let’s face it. I think our goal is just to make women more relaxed about what they have to do. And just make our lives a little easier. That’s all. It’s our mission.

@devt Thank you so much. I’ll just check whether Ness has got anything more.

Ness Simons Which women filmmakers have inspired you as a filmmaker?

Isabel Coixet Agnès Varda [1928–2019]. Her life, her persona. I know her very well. We have been together on a jury in Cannes, for the Camera d’Or. And I have to say I spent eight days with Agnes Varda and I have to say that was like six years ago, and she’s a force of nature and I think she is the most inspiring, not just in film and just being a person in the world. She’s curious about the world, she’s really free in her mind. And I I I love I love all her films. And she has done things that were never never valued at the time. And she’s still there doing things. And I mean she’s my hero. Wonder Woman, Agnès Varda.

@devt Well, you’re my hero now. Thank you. Have a good day editing. Bye.

Isabel Coixet Bye.