We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Capucine Salvi-offer. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Capucine below.

Capucine, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

One of my proudest achievements and most meaningful projects I’ve worked on is ‘KNITTING FOR KNOCKERS’, a powerful documentary showcasing breast cancer survivors and their journey to self-acceptance after life-changing mastectomies. I flew out to Bellingham, Washington for the production of this film and lived there for a month. Day in and day out, I lived, breathed, and filmed this incredible community of women, all led by one vibrant powerhouse- Barbara Demorest. She quickly became the main subject and it was a truly life-changing experience that I will never forget. I felt truly privileged when she came down from Bellingham to accept the Best Documentary Award with me when it won at the California Women’s Film Festival in 2018. It was a significant milestone that affirmed my directorial aspirations.

Capucine, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Capucine Salvi-Offer, I am a French/Australian filmmaker living in Los Angeles.

I was born in Australia and lived there until I was five, before growing up in Paris, France. Raised by two passionate cinephiles, cinematic education was a key component to my childhood. From Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet, to Pan’s Labyrinth to The Truman Show to Picnic At Hanging Rock- to name a few- no style, genre, or language was off limits. Growing up being cinematically literate opened up a whole new world of creativity that blew my mind and ignited my passion for storytelling.

At eighteen, I moved to London to pursue my studies in film with a Bachelor’s Degree and my first Master’s Degree in Documentary Practice at Queen Mary University Of London. It was there that I honed my vision, my storytelling abilities and cemented my ambition to become a director. Regularly practicing the filmmaking craft by directing a short, or producing films for my peers and myself made me feel like a filmmaker in my own right.

At twenty-one, I decided to move to Los Angeles. Moving to Los Angeles was scary, terrifying but most of all exciting. By moving, I was ready to fully immerse myself into becoming a better filmmaker, furthering my goal of becoming a director and officially starting my career. Luckily, I managed to find work as a Production Assistant on union shows. All while working on set, I applied to USC and got in. The next three years at the School of Cinematic Arts were a whirlwind of growing on a whole different scale than before, making some incredible friends and films all the while learning so much about myself and my peers as well as juggling COVID with the rest of the world.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

When I first moved to Los Angeles, in all honesty, I felt a little lost, I knew no one, I felt like had regressed. I went back to working as a production assistant but surely and very slowly, I climbed from the bottom to the top as an Assistant Director. I directed small productions here and there, but nothing that made me feel like I was making any progress in my career. I had to keep reminding myself why I had taken that giant leap of faith and moved here.

All types of individuals with unique backgrounds like my own come to this city and country to live out their American Dream, and I was one of them. Through hard work, determination, and grit- people do succeed and I am determined to make it as a director no matter what.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

ultimate goal is to work as a director in the film industry by telling stories that hold the power to impact and educate our society through my unique blend of narrative and documentary genres. Harry Warner from the Warner Brothers had a philosophy to ‘Educate, Enlighten and Entertain’, something that I deeply relate to in most of my films. I want to immerse an audience into a world of unrehearsed documentary verité and fuse it with narrative drama.

A film that was truly transformative for me was Rabbit Proof Fence, directed by Phillip Noyce- which exposed and gave voice to the historical injustices suffered by indigenous communities in Australia in the 1930’s. It spoke about crucial social issues- issues that matter and still have an impact on people today. That film was groundbreaking to me. It made me realize that I had a burning passion to tell those types of stories. True stories mixed with narrative drama that had a call to action became my sole focus and I decided then and there they would be my ‘bread and butter’.

That blend and unique style of documentary and drama storytelling was my driving force when I shot my very first documentary in the West Australian wilderness- and still is today. The wide-open red dirt of the beautiful landscape framed the simple story of a family who lived and worked on a cattle station isolated from civilization. Equipped with my trusty 5D Mark II, a zoom mic and a couple of Lavaliers, I had zero experience or knowledge of how to shoot a documentary, much less how to do it all by myself; however I knew what I was feeling and what I wanted an audience watching my documentary to be feeling. True emotion, passion and most importantly story and characters.That documentary, ‘Blood and Dust’, further fueled my ambition for filmmaking, kickstarted my studies, and is still one of my favorite films I’ve made. That film was the start to many great adventures and many learning curves in my filmmaking career. It taught me that every film starts with a story, a passion and the drive to succeed. It was also the foundation to one of the important lessons I learned in filmmaking- I couldn’t do it all by myself- no matter how hard I tried- collaboration and teamwork were the key ingredients to making any film happen.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://vimeo.com/capucinesalvioffer
• Instagram: capucine.salvi.offer
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/capucine-salvi-offer/

Image Credits

Capucine Salvi Offer