This interview was conducted over email on July 31, 2008.

Tell us something about your experience at Barnard. How did you end up majoring in Arabic?

I grew up in Paris. After finishing high school, I spent two years working all sorts of different jobs at newspapers and radio stations. I decided to go to New York for college, and applied just to Barnard. I wanted to be in New York and nowhere else, and the idea of going to an all women's school was very exotic to me. Also, my father had studied at Columbia as a Fulbright student just after the war and he had loved his time there.

Once I got accepted into school, I decided I had to study something I wouldn't be able to learn by myself. Subjects like history and anthropology were out of the picture because I felt, maybe wrongly, that I could read books and learn these things on my own. So I was considering Japanese, or Chinese, or Arabic or maybe Russian. At the time I was very attracted to the Arab world—my father's family was originally from Alexandria, and growing up in Paris, I was always surrounded by a lot of people who spoke Arabic. So that's how I made up my mind! I then went on to live in Cairo for a couple of years, and even though my Arabic is very rusty, I can still get around.

What made you decide to do a film about Antarctica?

In the early nineties, I was in Santiago de Chile to film an event. I've always been drawn to the ends of the world, so after we finished I decided to go south. I took a bus all the way down to Punta Arenas, and by then I was so close that I was determined to get to Antarctica. After some unsuccessful attempts to secure a flight with the Chilean Air Force, I found a cheap bunk on the very first tourist ship of the season. There were five scientists from the Scott Polar Research Institute on the ship who were hitching a ride to spend the summer doing research on Cuverville Island in the Antarctic Peninsula. They had a couple of tons of gear, for camping etc., and I filmed the day they disembarked. I remember thinking at the time that one day I'd like to make a film about Antarctica.

Cut to almost ten years later. I had read Sara Wheeler's book, Terra Incognita, about her travels in the area. I had just finished my second Rwanda film (I've made two films on the post-genocide justice and reconstruction process in Rwanda, the second of which won an Emmy in 2005, and I'm at work on a third and final film in the trilogy), and was wondering what was going to be next, when I found out about the National Science Foundation's Antarctic Artists and Writers Program. That was four years ago!

Ice People seems to be a very different project than your previous films about Nicaragua and Rwanda. Were you looking for a less obviously political subject?

You know, I never really know ahead of time exactly what I'm doing or why; I just click and become attracted and then I'm drawn in. It's only after the fact, in retrospect, that I understand the motivation. I am realizing that a lot of the work I do as a filmmaker is therapeutic; it's about living my life in a way that feels both content but also feels that I am contributing. So in retrospect, aside from the attraction, I think I wanted to clear my head and take new energy to be able to finish the Rwanda project.

Colonialism (and imperialism) were part of the historical story of Rwanda and Nicaragua. Did you have any sense of these at play in Antarctica?

This is absolutely not in the film, but in a way, I'd say yes. Even though this does not involve people because Antarctica has no native population, and colonialism was all about taking over not just land but the people who inhabit this land, Antarctica is one of these places on earth that man wants to control and inhabit and take over.

You mentioned there were bets around the McMurdo research station about how long you'd last in the field. What do you think that was about?

Scientists and their support people are the overwhelming majority in McMurdo—they come year after year and have their networks and know the lay of the land. So the Antarctic Program is not set up to cater to artists. When you arrive, you have a huge amount of new information to process and you find yourself on an incredibly fast learning curve to acclimate, not only to the physical conditions, but to the culture of the place, which has many layers of complexity. Everyone wants to make friends with you, but they also want to preserve their own territory. McMurdo is incredibly territorial.

But that's one of the talents you have to have as a documentary filmmaker. You have to learn how to resolve the specific issues that you're confronted with—for instance, the need to have recurring characters with a continuing story—with the environment you're in. There was a kind of corporate culture of constant suspicion at McMurdo, so that sometimes made things difficult.

Yes, there was this bet. I found out about it from one of the scientists in the film, Adam Lewis, when I was back in New York. Apparently a lot of people entered into it. For the scientists we were with but also a lot of the people working in McMurdo, it was a rite of passage kind of thing. No one thought these New Yorkers / Parisian city types were going to hack it for seven weeks in below freezing temperatures in a tent without washing!

Do you think it odd that the National Science Foundation (NSF) sent both you and Werner Herzog to film at McMurdo the same year?

I imagine that because of International Polar Year, NSF decided to bring down a couple of filmmakers to offer a range of perspectives. I don't think they necessarily anticipated that this might create a competitive environment for financing the film and then releasing it to the public. But the minute I found out they were sending Herzog, I knew it would make it that much harder to get the film out. So I had to get creative about devising a distribution plan that allows us both plenty of space, and we will probably be rolling out the film in the coming months.

Your film is about as different as imaginable from Herzog's Encounters, which mocks the 'quirky' people, emphasizes 'danger' everywhere (guns, vehicle crashes, toxic gases, underwater sea monsters, etc), and also has annoying loud music. Ice People depicts normal people with genuine scientific interest going about their business in an awesome, beautiful, and mostly quiet location. Why do you think your projects are so different?

As you said, Herzog's and my film are polar opposites! For instance, Herzog only spent a month on the ice, while I was there for four. Also, he spent time with many different people, a couple of days here and there, while in addition to two months in McMurdo as the sun was rising, I spent two full months with a small group in a tent. We also had very different goals—while he went after the types that go to the Ice, I was looking to bring back the most authentic possible representation of what it feels like to be in that massive uninhabited place with its cold silence, and to show the amazing drive and dedication it takes to explore that part of the world. These are very different perspectives, and I'm glad to say that, as I'm just beginning to show this to film critics, they are really appreciating the differences. So that's gratifying. I've actually suggested to festival programmers that they program our films together and have us engage in a discussion about how you can make such different films on the same subject. I haven't been able to convince anyone to do that yet, but it would be fun!

Why do you think there's such of rush of Antarctica films recently? I have not seen the two others hitting the festivals now (The Last Continent and BLAST!), but they too sound like they emphasize danger and excitement more than the quiet. Do you think there's a gendered aspect to this evocation of the 'old Antarctic Explorer' by making it seem dangerous/heroic to work there?

There has been a rush of Antarctica films lately and I imagine that has to do with International Polar Year. There's also been a rush of science-related films, and of course, Antarctica is about science and exploration in a big way. This being said, you're right, most of these films emphasize heroism and danger, and that's definitely a guy thing! I was after conveying the real feeling of the place, with the rhythm, the cold, and the boredom—without being boring!