Hannah Rothschild: You’ve just made your first feature, Brick Lane, for Film4. How did it come about?

Sarah Gavron: It was one of those bizarre coincidences. I’d been looking for a project which dealt with themes of outsiders and women when Tessa Ross and Alison Owen approached me. I felt such an emotional connection with this story about an immigrant woman finding her voice and managing to reconcile her past with her present. Like her, I am a woman, a mother, I am a Londoner, I’m married and though I’m not from Bangladesh, I have immigrant grandparents. Brick Lane is a universal story.

Was it hard to get the script right?

Yes, but you have to get it right. Not least because each film takes such a lot out of you. After many drafts, we came up with this idea of having something contained in this one year of this woman’s life, starting with spring and ending with winter and using 9/11 as the catalyst when the outer world started to impact on [the heroine’s] inner life.

How important was going to filmschool for your career?

I am a great believer in going on every course that is on offer, because you meet people and you get an opportunity to make things and make mistakes. Filmschool allowed me to try things out. And imagine having people like Stephen Frears in your cutting room! What more could you ask for. I definitely wouldn’t have been able to get to the point of making a first film without having gone through that process of making lots and lots of shorts.

Your style is very painterly.

I wanted to be an artist and am very interested how images connect to story modes or emotions. I didn’t know about filmmaking until I saw Terence Davies’s film when I was about seventeen. I realised he had a particular perspective on the world. And I suddenly thought I have a particular view of the world too.