Writer/Director Emmanuelle Bercot on Standing Tall

French actress and director Emmanuelle Bercot took the Cannes Film Festival by storm in 2015. She starred in Maiwenn’s Mon roi (My King) which garnered Bercot the festival’s Best Actress prize. Meanwhile, La Tete haute (Standing Tall), which Bercot cowrote and directed, kicked off the prestigious festival, making Bercot the first female director to open Cannes since 1987.

Bercot says that as an actress and a viewer,