Woman Of The House

French film-maker Anissa Bonnefont on feminism and her new thought-provoking film La Maison.

- Elliot Tan

"I DIDN'T CHOOSE film-making," says Anissa Bonnefont, whose prolific run of three critically acclaimed films in four years belies her suggestion that her destiny was somehow predetermined.

The 39-year-old French film-maker recalls spending her youth re-watching her favourite movies constantly so that she could be thoroughly steeped in her characters. In doing so, she felt compelled to do the same for others. "I wanted to do the same thing, to create worlds where people could enter and feel stronger after, or feel that they were cared for, even if it's just for a little while," she explains.

Bonnefont burst onto the scene with Wonderboy in 2019, a documentary about Balmain's creative director Olivier Rousteing and, a year later, with Nadia, another documentary, about Afghan-born Danish soccer star, Nadia Nadim. Her latest feature film, La Maison, tells the story of Emma (played by Ana Girardot), a writer who sets out to write a novel about sex workers and gets herself hired by a brothel to do real sex work.

Multi-layered and intense, La Maison is Bonnefont's most thought-provoking work yet. We sat with her to discuss the film, her inspirations and her views on feminism.

La Maison is a film adaptation of Emma Becker's novel. How did you feel after reading it for the first time?