Dinara Drukarova is a well-known Russian actress with a long list of films on her CV such as Paris, je t’aime (2006) Amour (2012) and Compartment Number 6 (2021). Now, she has made her debut as a director with the film Woman at Sea in which she also plays the leading character, Lili. The film, which premiered at the San Sebastián film festival in September, follows the strong-minded Lili, who arrives in Iceland to fulfill a dream of becoming a fisherwoman. She has no experience or license but the skipper Ian (Sam Louwyck) hires her to work on his boat Rebel, whose crew is composed of six men from various parts of the world – and now also Lili. Being a woman in a man’s world is not easy for Lili, but she is determined to gain the men’s respect through her hard work and resilience. The film portrays a lone woman in the world, who seeks to find her standing and create a life that has meaning for her – and not one that society dictates it to be.

We spoke to Dinara Drukarova via Zoom from her boat on the river in Paris, France, where she has lived for the past 23 years.

The film is an adaptation of Catherine Poulain’s novel “Le Grand Marin”(“Woman at Sea”). What made you want to adapt it?

When I read the book, which is an autobiographical story about her years of fishing in Alaska, I immediately felt that behind this personal story was the universal story of a being who wants to escape from her life before and go towards the unknown. It was for me the perfect metaphor for the expression “cast off and set sail.” Going to sea to confront yourself, to know your limits, to go further from yourself. And it was a woman, who enters this world of fishermen to gain the respect of others and the respect of herself too.

What is so fascinating about this woman who wants to be a fisherwoman, a very tough job in Iceland in particular?

Her strength. The fact that she was determined to do what she wanted to do. She did not play around. It was very clear. She was very sharp, very pure and incredibly true to herself.

The men on the boat call her Sparrow. Some try to seduce her. What did you want the audience to take from this about being a woman in a man’s world?

This is precisely her relationship with men. The film never ceases to question the way she has to position herself vis-à-vis this environment, the way she looks at men and the way they look at her. This look is changing. At one point, past the little sexist valves, mistrust, the men of her crew accept her for who she is and for her work ethic. Lili doesn’t feel compelled to overplay her masculinity, she simply has a strong personality and demands respect. This film is a plea not to be assigned by sexist cliché labels, to try to go beyond the masculine/feminine role plays that society and our culture too often impose on us. Lili will gradually take her place.

You are yourself a woman in a man’s world – the world of cinema, which is slowly transitioning to greater inclusivity. What has your experience been like?

When I entered the world of cinema at the age of ten, women were very rarely directing or had key positions in industry. But now these things are on the way to changing. Women have more possibilities to express themselves. My team was in the majority female. Producers, screenwriters, editors were woman. And I can say that they were strong, inspiring and engaged.

You were an actress for many years and decided to direct. What was your experience like as a director?

It was something that came naturally to me. I worked with different directors and it was a great school for me. Nevertheless, with the years I realized that I want to tell stories my way. It was for sure a big challenge to act and direct at the same time. 

You also have to have good back-up. I chose to work with cinematographer Timo Salminen (collaborator of Aki Kaurismaki’s films) with whom we had already shot my short film. Our bond was built at that time. Between us there is a kind of shorthand. We sometimes understand each other through a simple look. It’s very intuitive. Timo is mute, hardly speaks; he expresses himself through his images. Everything he films is of extreme beauty. For me he is a poet of the image – and poetry in cinema is what matters most to me, but with emotion, questioning, beauty and simplicity.

The choice of actors was also very important, because I knew that I had to act with them and direct them at the same time. I had to be extremely deliberate in choosing my partners. First, I wanted them to have an accent to create an end-of-the-world feel. Behind an accent, there is always a story, a past that takes us elsewhere. Several accents mixed in the same place, it’s like being in the kingdom of lost souls! Me included.

What made you decide to shoot it in Iceland?

The Icelandic landscapes provide a strong feeling of escape – with its small fishing ports at the end of the world, the infinite sea – but I would say that it is more than that… These landscapes speak to our unconscious. They allow us to unblock our thinking and our inner movement. I thought a lot about the paintings of the English painter Turner. When I am in front of his paintings, it is not the sea that I look at, it is inside myself. The foreground of the film shows my heroine from behind, contemplating a calm and hypnotic sea, which resounds in her like the call of the sirens in The Odyssey… It’s the infinite, the unknown, but it also refers to her inner state: a feeling of loneliness pegged to the body, and at the same time a magnificent desire to escape.

The ocean there is very rough, so what was the shoot like under these rough conditions?

I like when it is rough. I don’t like when you are too comfortable. Once you get in this situation, you find a certain truth and it becomes interesting. It is not something that makes me afraid, rather the contrary.

The fishing footage had to show the truth. The sea does not forgive mistakes, so we had to be absolutely precise in the way of capturing and filming the body language. Filming at sea is very complex, both for insurance requirements and the number of people authorized to be on the boat. On the other hand, we cannot ask the actors to perform the precise gestures of the fishermen themselves because the danger on the bridge is omnipresent. We went fishing with the technical team and real fishermen. All the footage is authentic. The staging operates constantly between this ballet of real scenes and the fictional sequences with the actors.

You are a Russian filmmaker. How do you experience the climate right now considering everything that is going on in the world?

I was born in Russia, but for last 20 years I have lived in France.

When I was a little girl my parents said to me, “Dinara, you have to leave Russia because there is no future here.”  I have a feeling of shame and powerlessness; the fact that you cannot change the situation. I moved to France and what is happening now, returns my country of birth to the past; the fear, the censorship and dictatorship. I have shot four films in Ukraine. I was there. I know the country. I made films and I made friends who are like family now. It is heartbreaking to imagine that many of them can be killed, and of course I totally support their struggle for independence. And I despise and condemn this war that Putin and his government has started.