The first place I felt power was when I began being sexualized. This began happening earlier, and in more confusing ways than it was “meant to” according to the mainstream narrative. People would give me attention (negative or positive) when they saw me as a female object, a lesson I wasn’t able to metabolize in healthy ways as the child I was at that time.

The belief system that took hold was that my genuine connections with men (mentors, friends, collaborators, etc) could all take a turn because of the shadowy potential of sexuality. It is this shadow region that I am interested in exploring in Cherubs, and most of my films. Though these lessons felt secret crosses to bear growing up, I’ve realized that many other women have experienced some version of the same: stories that have been buried under shame.

The stories I’ve seen in media have never matched up with my own experience. Though “MeToo narratives” have come to the fore in recent years, they tend perpetuate a victimhood binary that doesn’t leave much space for the quiet moments I’m interested in. Girls often come of age in much more complicated and nuanced ways, a widespread yet banal kind of trauma. Because there is a lack of visibility for stories like Basia’s, they are often left unspoken, and the damaging lessons drawn from them are never untangled and undone. I hope to do a small part of that untangling with Cherubs.