Ayaneh has a lovely naturalistic quality to it, which seems to stem from your Documentary feature roots. Can you discuss how your background helped you approach this project?

Thank you very much for the compliment :-) Despite various layers and also a touch of surrealism in the script, I always wanted to keep this short as natural as possible, allowing people to dive into Ayaneh's world and go on this journey together with her. When you work on a Documentary you capture what is around you, raw and "natural" in a sense. I like that, I think it's easier for an audience to relate to a character when what happens on screens looks natural. We also worked with Cooks Panchro lenses on the Arri Alexa, trying to support that natural look we were looking for in the eventual grading of the film.

The story is such a specific one. How did the concept of the film come about?

I was looking around me in Switzerland and was trying to identify topics which I think deserve more attention. I haven’t seen any short film or frankly any kind of film dealing with a young female refugee from the Middle East adapting to Western culture and developing strong feelings for another woman. Moreover, I strongly oppose the idea of suppression of human beings from society or religion. I felt there was a strong need for a role model like “Ayaneh”, that she would have the potential to open the audience’s eyes and ultimately make them more tolerant towards the issues that she is going through.