VANESSA SANDRE is a Brazilian filmmaker based in Toronto, Canada. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Film and a Master's degree in Literature focused on Women and Gender Studies. Vanessa has cultivated a diverse career as a screenwriter, producer, director, and performer for the last 14 years. As a Latina immigrant and artist, she finds inspiration in crafting narratives that amplify underrepresented voices through a decolonial and intersectional feminist lens.
‘The Pleasure is All Mine’ (O Prazer é Todo Meu, 2023) is her latest fictional short film and addresses the taboo subject of female sexuality in old age. Filmed in Brazil, it has been selected for over 40 film festivals worldwide, including the 32nd MixBrasil, Inside Out Toronto 2SLGBTQ+, and the 35th St. John's International Women's Film Festival. The short also received 22 awards, including ‘Best of the Showcase’ and ‘Audience Award’ at the 2024 WIFT + Toronto Showcase.
Vanessa has been selected for the Creators of Colour Incubator 2024 - CCI (by Caribbean Tales Media Group) and the Career Advancement Module of WIDC—Women in Director’s Chair.
For Vanessa, movies are a catalyst for connection and social change, influencing how we see and engage with the world.
Why film? Why did you decide on this of all the things you could do with your life?
That's my question. Every therapy session actually. I don't really have the answer. But I can tell you a little bit about my journey.
I started with theater and dance when I was a teenager and I fell in love with the arts, but I was not that good in theater. I was not a good actor. I started dancing kind of late, so I was not really good at those practices. I said, oh, maybe I can do something else in the arts, then maybe I can be great. Then I started research. I always loved films and you had the DVD and you watched the extras, but that was something so far from my reality, and I think that's why it attracted me that much. I didn't have any relatives or friends in the industry. Nobody filmed in my city. I got the gut feeling that I should try something really bold. It was funny that I think this year was the first year that I, in therapy, said, okay, I think I made the right decision. 14 years later.
What was happening that led you to make that connection, “I made the right decision.”
It was this film. Throughout my career, I had some moments, but with The Pleasure Is All Mine I feel that I was able to touch so many people and open this big discussion about female sexuality through another point of view. It's so powerful.
I had such a great experience sharing these with people, really true connections, people crying after the session, coming to talk with me, telling them stories. So I think I went into film because I wanted to connect with people. I want to make people feel things. I want to talk with them about those things. So I think this year I had this realization, okay, I'm in the right pathway, I did good with this. And I want to keep doing good. I want to keep connecting with people.
Still from The Pleasure Is All Mine
If you were to advise an emerging filmmaker as to how they get to this place in their career where they're like, I made a good decision, I didn't go to law school, I didn't go to medical school…What would you tell an emerging filmmaker if you were to give them advice about just where you are now?
I consider myself an emerging filmmaker. Right? First of all, it's finding your voice – why are you doing this? If you could do anything else… There are so many pathways you connect and you can be good and do meaningful things. But why this and why are you good at this? And for me, it was really hard as a woman director, screenwriter, creator, to assume this position in my life. It took me more than ten years to say “I'm this and I and I'm good at this.”
I experimented a lot to understand that I wanted to be in this position. Experiment as much as you can. Second, find your voice. Why do you want this? Why do we want to say this? Not just saying something for the sake of saying something. What do you have to say that is unique?
You said it took you a while to take position and take space as a woman. I'm always curious because we say this as women, and I think there's something deeper behind that statement. We create human beings. We’re creators of cultures and language and food. So I'm curious as to how you didn't feel comfortable in a space that is so natural to your existence, which is being creative.
I love what you said. It's beautiful. We are so creative, right? We bring life, we make life. And there's nothing more creative than that, right? So I think maybe there's many layers in that. First of all, you don't have role models. I think I didn't know any great female directors when I got into film school. I couldn't see myself in that position because I didn't have something to look at. Second, that we are very hard on ourselves, we don't have the same right to make mistakes as men have. When you are making films, there are a lot of mistakes. We should give ourselves more grace, sometimes you make a bad movie and it's fine because men make bad movies all the time.
I think we have this idea of what a creative, writer, or a director should be.
My first film I filmed at the end of my film school. And then there's The Pleasure Is All Mine, which is just my second film. As a director, writer, director, it took me nine years between each of the films. So I have a different creative process than what you’d think when you think of a writer director. I had to understand this about myself.
It's interesting that when you accept yourself, you become more creative. Now, I am able to have more projects, but when I was not confident about myself, I could just work really hard on one project at a time.
Still from The Pleasure Is All Mine
You talked about how one of the obstacles was not knowing artists growing up. And so now, let's say, 14 years later, who are the filmmakers that have inspired you?
So many. From Agnes Varda, to my favorite, it's Catherine Breillat – she talks a lot about sexuality now, like almost porn. At this point of my life, I'm trying to research as much as I can, like, decolonial, and black, non-binary, female. I'm really interested in Latin American filmmakers. So I try to watch as much as I can in Latin America, because I also feel that we have a really interesting history, interesting films, and people don't know that.
So let's talk about The Pleasure Is All Mine because it is a spectacular film. You make two two statements that I thought were really interesting. One is the title Pleasure Is All Mine because you're owning pleasure, which is something that women don't do. The other is your casting. Casting a 76 year-old woman who has never experienced orgasm, who goes out of her way to ensure that she does. Those two statements were so powerful, and I wanted to know how you got here.
I was really interested in expanding my vision about women in film. At that point, I was 25, 26, and I never had thought about women in film. I never realized that I didn’t know any female directors, or the ways that women are portrayed. So I enrolled in a master’s program and decided to study this.
In the process, I wanted to do something different, an antithesis of the male gaze. It’s a big question – what is the female gaze? How do you achieve that? I thought, I'm going to show this body, but I'm not going to sexualize this, but I'm going to let this body be sexual.
The script changed a lot. At the start, it was more about the failure of the marriage. These long term relationships that people do not even talk to one another anymore. I was sharing it with other women filmmakers, and I realized maybe I should show her seeking for pleasure for real. I never saw another woman trying to have an orgasm on film.
I think people are afraid of the movie. But do you know where I found space? In the LGBTQ+ community. Those festivals were the open space for this film. This is not a LGBTQ+ film per se, but that was the only space where people are allowed to openly talk about elderly women, talk about female sexuality.
Still from The Pleasure Is All Mine
If you could change one thing about Canadian or Brazilian cinema, what would it be?
I have some problems with Canadian film because it lacks some deeper meaning, generally speaking. I'm not a specialist, but I feel that the young filmmakers are so stuck with the idea that they have to do Hollywood types of things. So I see very well filmed films with good cameras. Technically speaking, good, but with no content. What is their statement? Why are you telling this story? You have to be very assertive.
We were talking before about the why. At some point I said to myself, I can be a director because I do like those things. You have people in the project that love other things. They can bring their skills and you can work on what your statement is, what your strength is like.
My strength is working with actors, and that's why I do films. I love working with actors. The other people can bring in the rest so you don't have to know everything. You don't have to.
Interview by Breakthroughs Board Member Sunita Miya-Muganzar
*This article has been edited for clarity