1) Can you talk briefly about your background, and how you first got interested in filmmaking?

I think it was when I took my first cinema studies course as an undergrad – that’s when I really fell in love with film and decided to make it an important part of my life. I moved to New York to go to NYU’s graduate film program, have lived in the city for going on 15 years. I’m an editor, that’s how I keep the lights on, and anything creative I’ve ever pursued – photography, writing, even cooking – I can draw a straight line between that and cinema.

2) What’s the backstory here - what was the initial idea and how did it evolve from there? 

After a very long time concentrating solely on my editing career I was compelled to make something new, with nothing at stake, just for the sake of making a new thing. I’d always wanted to work with my friend Hadia in Paris – I’d never seen her act, but I love her and can stare at her face and listen to her for hours. I took a bit of business from a feature I’d been writing and adapted it into a short for her. The piece called for another actor and Hadia suggested Colombine, who was incredible. That’s how the first “Novembre” section came to be. I loved that experience so much that I set out to make a second and third chapter, and over the course of one year and three visits to Paris we made “One Year of Khadijah and Pauline.”

3) What was the biggest challenge in making this film? And generally what part of the creative process do you enjoy the most, and the least? 

For all three sections of the film I was unable to rehearse with Hadia and Colombine until I was in Paris. I was unable to personally location scout or work out the coverage and blocking, nor was I able to hear the dialogue spoken out loud in French until I was in France. I luckily worked with people I trust and care for very much – my crew was comprised entirely of former ESRA students of mine, and the film just belongs to Hadia and Colombine. It never felt real until I heard them speak life into the dialogue.

4) What’s a film you’ve seen recently, new or old, that you really loved and why? 

The last movie I saw in an actual movie theater was To Have and Have Not at the Metrograph. I’d never seen it and I loved it. Hawks and Hemingway and Bogart and Bacall– all of them had such an unmistakable, elegant economy of style; I feel they were made for each other.

5) What’s next for you?

I very sincerely and embarrassingly fell in love with these characters, Khadijah and Pauline, and I’m not ready to say goodbye. I’m writing a feature based on the short and hope to get it produced within next two years.

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IG: @lee_m