Eileen Byrne: make it easier for women to work in the film industry

Even with her debut feature film Marianengraben (Mariana Trench) under her belt and coming off a run of travelling to festivals and receiving critical acclaim, director and writer Eileen Byrne is not resting on her laurels.

“After the show is before the show,” she told the Luxembourg Times on the opening day of the Berlinale film festival in February.

Now permanently ensconced in the German capital, Byrne says that the initial excitement of that flurry of activity has definitely subsided. “It’s gotten very quiet now. It doesn’t feel that different [to before the film].”

Born and raised in Luxembourg, Byrne grew up in an artistic family, with a German mother and a French-Scottish father, who often performed together as a folk group. But she eventually studied film directing at the University of Television and Film Munich and followed that with a master’s degree in directing at the Toulouse film school.

Despite living in Germany for over a decade, she has maintained her Luxembourg roots. She was of the generation of film makers that spawned actress Vicky Krieps (who has acted in two of Byrne’s early short films), director and producer Govinda van Maele, special effects specialist Jeff Desom and producer Bernard Michaux, who oversaw Marianengraben for Samsa Film.

Byrne immediately cites Michaux when she says that in the Luxembourg film industry, she has never felt she was treated differently as a woman.

“Maybe because Luxembourg is a bubble and we don’t have that many film makers, so the competition is not that big,” she conjectures. “But now that I live in Berlin, I can definitely feel it in a stronger sense.” Then again, Byrne admits that she is not as good as most men in selling herself.

“Like many women, I suffer from imposter syndrome, and that makes it more difficult for me to get attention, and to fight for better pay.” That, in turn makes producers maybe overlook talented women directors and technical crew. “It’s kind of a vicious circle. But it’s especially important to acknowledge it and to try to fight it.”

Not that she regrets moving to Berlin after 16 years in Munich. Many of her friends in the Bavarian city had started a family or moved away, and she felt lonely and in need of a new challenge.

“I needed something international. Since I left Luxembourg, I’ve been looking for a place that’s lively and where I can work.”

She acknowledges that there are more and more females working in the film industry, including some as directors. “I am lucky to have been born at a time when I can work as a director. But we are still not that numerous. I think one big issue is that filmmaking is still not compatible with having a family,” Byrne explained.

As a member of both the Luxembourg Association of Filmmakers and Scriptwriters and Women in Film and Television Germany, Byrne says it is important for her to fight for more rights for women, to make it easier for them to work in the film industry.

Childcare and part-time work

“Childcare on set is one thing. And then also maybe making part-time work possible. For instance, some people have suggested you can have two directors of photography, two women for example, who share the work.”

Her eyes had been opened up to the challenges of being a female director when one of her idols, award-winning German film-maker Carolina Link, came to her film school for a panel discussion.

Link’s husband is German director Dominik Graf, who did a lot of work for television. “I think she only made a film every five years, or less, because it just wasn’t possible. It kind of shocked me to hear how difficult it had been, and how she could have made so many more films if she had been a man.”

Byrne also understands why it was challenging for some women of Link’s generation to be leaders on set. “She was part of a generation where women had to be like men or adapt to a male world to be able to work. But I think that our generation now is changing. I want to believe that we as women can make films as women without copying men.”

On the other hand, she admits that many women don’t like having a bad mood on set. “We don’t like people not liking us, but as a director, you have to cancel those feelings.”

Women’s issues

The majority of Byrne’s films have focused on female protagonists or women’s issues – from breast cancer to misogyny – but she doesn’t necessarily see herself as a feminist film maker. “My goal was never to tell feminist stories. It’s just that as a woman, I know what a woman goes through and I have this urge to tell stories that I feel that touch me, that I understand.”

Eileen Byrne and actress Luna Wedler on the set of ‘Marianengraben’ © Photo credit: Samsa film

Marianengraben was based on a best-selling novel by German author Jasmin Schreiber and featured Swiss actress Luna Wedler in the lead role of a young woman struggling with guilt and grief after the death of her younger brother.

“Working with Luna was really easy. We got along so well and we both understood the character in the same way. I think that we almost didn’t have to talk about it,” Byrne said. “I am not sure how different the film would have been under a male director. Maybe he would have understood the [older] male character better.”

Her next projects include adapting a version of her second “quickie” short film, Kannerspill (child’s play) which was shown at the Max Öphuls Preis festival in Saarbrucken in January. The story centres on three working poor single mothers in Luxembourg who decide to rob a bank to solve their financial problems.

“So again, it’s a very female driven story. But these are also the struggles that I have seen around me. So, again, it’s something that I know about, a subject that touches me.”