Interview with Director, Writer & Filmmaker Laura Ghazal

My name is Laura Ghazal, I am 33 and I am a screenwriter and filmmaker. After a double degree in Political sciences at Science Po and Communications at La Sorbonne, I started a professional career in Marketing and Communications. But quickly my passion for writing and directing took over. So I decided to go back to school to acquire the basics and legitimacy on sets. Then I tried to be hired as director assistant to discover this brand new world. In 2011, I founded my own production company, We See production. Today, in parallel to corporate projects led by the structure, I try to spend as much time as possible to write short films and to develop personal projects such as A Battling Body

New #selection for #ABattlingBody (#ACorpsBattant) @LionsheadFF #film #festival in #Dallas, #Texas.#FightMS #SEP #IndieFilm #ShortFilm pic.twitter.com/7cQ5gy0aGJ

— Laura Ghazal (@lauraghazal) June 9, 2017

indieactivity: Why did you get into filmmaking and screenwriting?
Laura: There is no objective reason, I just need to. It is my way of expressing myself. When I decided to drop off my career, it seemed to me I did not have any other choices, it was an evidence.

indieactivity: How does an indie filmmaker distribute his/her film?
Laura: Struggling!

indieactivity: When does a indie filmmaker to start planning for distribution?
Laura: Actually I don’t know. Distribution is not really what I care of when I start a project. Of course, I’d rather it to be distributed and broadcasted as much as possible, but I don’t think about it until I finish it. I don’t make films to be distributed, I feel free to make my movies the way I imagine them, and I care about how to broadcast them much later…

indieactivity: How can filmmakers finance their projects?
Laura: It depends on the project, but for A Battling Body I used my enlarged network thanks to crowdfunding platform. Of course, as this short promotes the struggle against a widespread disease, it has been easier for me to raise awareness for the cause and got help by lots of wonderful professional around me. Furthermore, I use my tiny corporate movie production company to finance my more artistic or personal projects.

indieactivity: What films have you written and made?
Laura: I have written and shot A Battling Body (2016), and B.A.M! (2014) A French humorous web series about getting married.

indieactivity: What are your future goals?
Laura: I would like to be able to make more ambitious movies. I have plenty of scripts sleeping in my desk drawers, I want to bring them to life. My only goal in life is to tell stories through movies.