1.4 Interview

See the full interview here: https://www.onepointfour.co/2026/02/03/spinning-their-web/

Can we just quickly run through your extraordinary life where you’ve lived everywhere…
Gabrielle: A bit all over the place. I’m originally French, but moved to Tokyo when I was five. Japan was really big and impressive, so that was a fun stint. I then moved to Sydney when I was eight, which is where I learned English. I was placed into an English primary school and forced to pick up the language via passive absorption. That’s when I started writing (I only write in English now). When I was fourteen, my family moved to Berlin and I finished my scholarity there. I went to university in Scotland, now direct films in London and I’m going to be moving to the US this year to raise money and build out my production company. 

Were your parents and your upbringing particularly creative?
They weren’t actually. My dad’s a software engineer and my mom’s a therapist, so while emotional expression was encouraged and my parents loved engaging with books, film and general media, no one in my family is particularly creative.
I wanted to be an actress when I was younger. I gave that a go for a few years but soon realised I could never be ‘great’ at it, and that was a deal breaker. That’s when I leaned into writing and directing, they came more naturally and I enjoyed the holistic creative control. My family is super supportive though, and always give great unfiltered feedback.

And now you’re in a producing-directing duo, living in London?
I co-founded a production company with my close friend Coro Benavent. Early on, we produced each other’s projects, but as the team has grown and we’ve brought on additional producers, our roles have evolved. We now either direct our own work or focus on running and scaling the company.

She’s Spanish?
Yes! She moved to London towards the end of 2024, only a month after we met (I roped her into moving!). We decided to live together so we could work at a faster pace. We’ve been building Garo Studios ever since. 

What’s your first year been like?
I did my first fashion film called Sariusai in March, and Coro helped out, but we hadn’t formalised the company yet. We loved that initial ‘test’ of working together, and agreed to do our first joint piece the following month. Coro is also a musician and had been composing a handful of songs at the time. Around the time we finished my fashion film, her grandmother sadly passed away, and she wanted to create a tribute piece in the form of a music video. That same day, one of her drama school friends, an incredibly talented musician called Gully, came to London. They co-wrote Palomitas sin maíz, which felt like a beautiful goodbye song. I found it really moving: very sincere and intimate. I mentioned I would love to direct the piece, though all the ideas were joint – it was a true meshing of our two brains. Once again, we loved working together, and realised we wanted to formalise these efforts into a production company. 

Did the crafting of Palomitas sin maíz come together easily?
We didn’t have much work behind us, which can make it hard to persuade a talented team to hop on board. However, because of the message of the song and the love and care we applied to every pre-production detail, people were very willing to give up their time and help us. We approached an incredible retired actress Dinah Stabb, who Coro knew through family members, to star as the grandmother figure in the video. She accepted and had access to a beautiful countryside estate that we were able to film in. She also owned a horse called Cully (Cully and Gully was a confusing arrangement of names on set!), and I discovered that directing animals is harder than it seems. Everyone put their whole heart into the video and it ended up doing really well, being featured on Kodak and nominated to British Young Arrows. 

Though I loved Palomitas and the production experience was hugely meaningful, it didn’t capture the directing style that I wanted to eventually evolve into. 

Then came Ragni. This was the first time I really stepped back and asked myself what kinds of stories I wanted to tell and what visual approaches I found compelling. One thing that had been emphasised to me repeatedly this past year, especially through my mentorship with Marta Bobić at CANADA, was the importance of refining your ‘voice’ as a director. Ragni was my first real attempt at this. 

I heard Gaia Banfi’s song, and I instantly had so many ideas. It was originally going to be a very simple dance piece. We had almost no budget, so the plan was to use one roll of 16mm film and one dancer. 

At the same time, the more I explored the concept of the video, the more I realised that we needed to scale up. 

Ragni means ‘spiders’ in Italian. I thought, how can I extrapolate that thematically? Louise Bourgeois’s famous spider sculpture Maman came to mind. ‘Maman’ means mother in French (French is my mother tongue), and the piece features a large, gorgeous looming spider planted in all these different cities. It’s currently in the Tate Modern. Bourgeois says that while spiders often evoke disgust or dread, for her the spider is a protective creature, which she compares to her mother. She explains that her mother was a weaver, always watching over her. 

The more I thought about that, the more I was thrown back to conversations I had with female friends and family members about a shared fear… which is to be boxed in as ‘female’-anything. A ‘female’ director, the ‘female’ in a relationship – anything that really limits me in terms of association.
Particularly in the context of romantic relationships, I think there are still a lot of norms and outdated models that persist. One thing I noticed this year through personal experiences and previously in relationships, is that I have a strong adverse reaction to any implication that I may be boxed into this. At the same time, I find femininity to be fun, exciting and useful. That duality of emotions was really interesting, and I thought there’s something here. This is where the video developed further in terms of having multiple narrative sequences.

At the start of the video, a woman finds out that she’s pregnant, and starts to notice red flags in her relationship (in the form of growing spiders). The pregnancy makes her realise that she feels trapped in this ‘feminine’ role opposite her partner.
We go from this linear narrative sequence into a fantasy land where the rules are completely inverted. In this black-and-white land, the woman is in control, fully at ease in the space, and she’s got these eight male dancers that appear behind her like her eight spider legs. In the spider kingdom, male spiders are typically inferior and the females eat them after reproducing. I wanted to show, to a more extreme degree, the arbitrariness of these roles and systems – in one world it’s one way, in the other it’s the complete opposite. 

Finally, I wanted to display her fear to the fullest. As the fantasy dies down, we enter a ‘nightmare’ sequence, in which she wears a 1950s outfit, her hair is beautifully done, and she’s possessed by a strange and creepy beat. At the end of this eerie dance, she turns towards her child (possibly a daughter), who has transformed into a spider. It’s as if the torch has been passed onto the next generation.

I really wanted to capture this feeling of being trapped. One thing that I got repeatedly as feedback was that people didn’t get what the video was about, but they were left feeling uneasy and stuck. That’s all I was hoping for – to communicate this feeling in my own way. 

I’m super grateful for all the work that went into it, we had a roughly £2K budget. Almost all of it went to film. We shot two rolls of Double X, one roll of 500T and one roll of 50D. It was a micro-budget considering the scale of ambition and our crew was just unreal.
I think the reason that we were able to get such a great team was because people really resonated with the treatment. We had a brief rehearsal process with the lead actors, in which they shared their own feelings around these gendered pressures, both on the male and female side. I think this allowed the story to have a strong sense of heart. 

Did you storyboard everything beforehand and follow that, or was it evolving all the time as you went along? And would that be your normal process of making a film?
I always try to storyboard and then realise that it’s too hard and give up halfway. So the way I end up actually doing things, especially in the context of music, is by breaking it down into musical sections.
I would say I have a pretty good idea of timings, since I also edit the pieces. For example, the end of Ragni was much more chopped up and erratic. I knew I needed a bunch of variations of the same dance, with enough flexibility to feel moves out in the edit.
Other sections, like the start of the video, where the man enters the kitchen, needed to commit to the beat because I like to align movement to music. So there I knew exactly what was needed, with just enough coverage to be safe. With 16mm though, you have to be so economical anyway. You have to think like an editor – whether you are one or not. I shot-list meticulously, but I know where to leave a bit of leeway for spontaneity and improvising on the day (it’s much more fun when you can be present with the monitor and the moment). 

What is your background as an editor?
I taught myself editing from scratch. I actually got a job as a videographer at a summer camp before I ever touched a camera or played around in Premiere. The guy in charge of marketing there hadn’t been given the memo I think, and just assumed that I knew how to edit so he gave me multiple projects from day one. I learned by Googling issues and piecing things together – I loved it! Following that, I decided to go into debt to buy my first camera and a better laptop, and made that money back with videography gigs within a few months.
My approach to editing really came from my events videography background. When you create a highlight reel for someone, you are composing a story. You need visual variety, you need escalation, you need a climax – this is how I also think of my music videos. I like the idea of having a strong build up and keeping the viewer on their feet. 

When you are making a film, do you become absolutely obsessed with it? And are you having loads of ideas that, oh, that actually doesn’t fit here, I’ll do that next time? How does that work?
Definitely, yes. In regard to being obsessed, people that are close to me will know that I don’t sleep much before production. Even the week before Ragni, I would wake up at four in the morning and just go for walks and listen to the song.
Then in terms of overlapping ideas, there’s definitely a thematic through line between the pieces that I’ve done. The closer I get to something that feels authentic to the style that I want to be creating, the more it ends up popping up in multiple places.
For example, the gender switch elements in Ragni, where in one sequence the woman is more submissive and contained, and in another sequence she’s powerful and commanding, or the realism storyline that devolves into surrealism by the end – these are things I have incorporated into my next short film. It’s like playing around, experimenting with a visual concept and if it works, I’ll take it further into the next piece. 

That’s what’s so wonderful about it. Because it’s not just a linear narrative, it’s abstract and as an audience you just absorb it on a visceral level.
One of the things that I love most in terms of narrative approaches is to begin with a grounded story, one that has a simple premise or easy buy-in, making it conventionally compelling, and then twisting the genre or plot on its head.
Yorgos Lanthimos does this so well in his films. You follow his characters, they feel just about psychologically grounded enough and then he selects a specific moment to elevate with a surrealist touch, and it makes that moment scintillate. Bugonia is a great example of this (my favourite film of this last year!).
That’s what I want to do with my films: to construct worlds that are interesting and digestible enough to start, and then raise the stakes and make things a little bit more magical. 

Let’s talk about the next stage of where you’re going to in the States, the hacker house?
We’ve been speaking with a few houses in New York and San Francisco, and are trying to figure out what might suit our next move best.
Our production company now has some really cool traction, and we’ve been raising a small angel round for our first two narrative shorts. I privately raised about £25K for our first short film Tussle, which I am directing alongside Working Title producers and executive producer Marta Bobic from CANADA. Tussle is about a young girl who becomes ostracised after hooking up with a popular boy at a highschool party, and turns to martial arts for emotional release. We’ll be shooting that mid-March.
Coro is in development to direct a piece with the help of a BAFTA-winning writer, which relates to her own childhood and internal blocks. These are our first two pieces, which represent us as individual directors and will act as our entry into the narrative space as a company. 

As soon as we wrap these up, alongside a few commissions we’ve been asked to do, we’ll be flying to the US to build out the company and raise money for our first feature film slate. 

Can you just summarise about hacker houses and how raising venture capital works?
A hacker house is usually more common in the tech space (hence “hacker”). It’s a residency that brings together individuals, often some who are founding companies or projects.
The idea is that it enables networking – you can meet other founders or VCs who may be interested in investing in your company. It’s typically used more by startups, though some are becoming open to hosting creative hybrids. From an artist standpoint, it’s definitely worth looking into. There is so much pessimism in the film industry, due to a lack of funding or significant career infrastructure. Making films ends up being gate-kept by larger institutions which have certain boxes they need to check. The tech landscape, on the other hand, has such an abundance of capital and programs that help young people get their foot in the door. Ultimately, I believe that the way to ensure you’re able to make meaningful artistic work, means learning to play a resources game, and a good way to do that is to cross-pollinate industries. Coro and I are exploring the idea of converting what we are doing into a streaming platform, starting with short film acquisitions and in-house productions, and eventually tackling features. We want to make sure that we retain that auteur-driven sense through careful curation and commissioning.
Long-term, we also want to open a Y-Combinator style incubator for writer/directors. YC is a very famous startup programme in the US – they provide mentorship and help you pitch your company to investors, while giving early financial backing. Similarly, we’d bring in early-stage artists to create alongside each other, teach them how to pitch and provide the resources to help them develop their films. This would be a really meaningful pursuit. 

Brilliant. Is there anything else you’d like to add?
The last two quick things I’ll say is that this year really taught me that you can do a lot, even with no prior contacts or resources.
I came to London and didn’t really know anybody. By putting myself out there, practising pitching and discussing creative ideas, people are really happy to help and collaborate.
At the start of the year, I was so uncertain and shy in talking about any of my ideas. I would force myself to practise different versions of my pitches, depending on who I was speaking to. Now it’s second nature. It’s a skill that every artist should make a top priority.
With a very small budget, provided that you have heart and a compelling story, you can do a lot. I think that should be inspiring.
And I think it’s super exciting that we’re trying to bridge tech and art spaces. There’s a lot of fear around technological change in our industry, which is understandable. But we have to engage with these conversations actively, otherwise we’ll have no say in the future of our medium. Engaging with people in the tech space allows us to leverage what they do incredibly well – problem solving at scale and resource acquisition. Without the resources, we can’t make important artistic work. Without that work, we cannot meaningfully change the world. So I would strongly encourage cultural crossover. I think it’s super important.

Do you ever stop? Are you always thinking?
Yes, no, sort of! It’s been really interesting towards the end of this year, learning to wear two different hats.
There’s the ‘company’ hat, which is way more business and ‘go, go, go’, and then there’s the ‘director’ hat, which is about being emotionally observant and in tune.
I think there’s a time and place for both modes.
I’m about to enter a creative period right now with my short film Tussle, and I’m realising that I won’t be able to connect to the material well if I’m constantly thinking about raising or thinking about our next steps for the business. I need to almost disconnect from that entirely and go for walks and reflect and listen to music and have conversations with friends.
That’s beautiful. I think that’s the point of being an artist, it’s to elevate the little moments and background emotions. I want to make sure I don’t get lost in the structure of it all.
The real key, and my goal for this year, is to learn how to switch between those two systems – the logical and the emotional one – as smoothly as possible.
Right now, I get thrown into one and feel like, oh, I’ve got to raise a bunch so I become very objective and structured, but I’m pretty out of touch emotionally. And then at some point the reality of what I’m doing and exploring creatively hits me and it takes me a few days to turn off the emotional floodgates. It doesn’t feel completely in my control. So that’s the skill that I’m looking to gain this year.

I think you’re very balanced in your left side, right side brain.
I am trying to refine them as best I can and to remind myself that both are very important, it’s just a timing thing.