Filmmaker Mathilde Dratwa on Internal Validation and Realizing No One Ever “Makes It”

March 23, 2018 | Filed in: Woman of the Week

Mathilde Dratwa is a New York-based polyglot, filmmaker, and co-founder of Moms in Film, a nonprofit that provides services to mothers in the film industry (a recent success: providing free child care at the Sundance Film Festival). In addition to her acting, teaching, and activist work, she has written and directed several short films, including Escape From Garden Grove, which was a finalist in the Sundance Channel Shorts Contest and screened at thirteen festivals. Here, she talks about her “accountability group,” the importance of creative field trips, and finding internal validation.

I WENT TO UNIVERSITY at Cambridge in the U.K., and then helped start an international baccalaureate program for theater in France right after that. I was in my early twenties, and most of my senior students were taller and looked older than me, which was awkward. When you teach a subject, you learn to think more critically about it. You also make a lot of choices about what to include in a curriculum, and that forced me to examine my own point of view and broaden my ideas about what theater can be. That experience was a big reason why I got into my graduate program at the Drama Centre London; it was also useful after grad school, when I moved to New York, because I could find employment as a teaching artist. I was able to work in downtown theater, pay my bills, have a flexible schedule, and find an incredible group of emerging artists I could collaborate with.

ON THE SET OF THE VERY FIRST SHORT FILM I ever made, Escape From Garden Grove, we ran out of time when we still had all these shots to do. Then, we realized that because of the placement of a mirror on a wall, we could do a whole scene using one shot. We’d follow one character to the mirror and then we could see both her and her grandmother in the background at the same time. And that shot turned out to be the best shot of the movie. It goes to show that setbacks can sometimes produce a better outcome, and creative solutions to technical constraints can result in stronger art.

Mathilde wears the Fey top and Soho skirt in black and the Helene necklace.

NO MATTER WHAT LEVEL YOU REACH IN FILM, you never feel like you’ve really “made it.” I know someone who was nominated for an Oscar this year and didn’t win. The disappointment was very real for that person, but to me, it’s like, “You were nominated for an Oscar!” When you’re an artist, you need to have a certain level of curiosity, and you’re always a little bit dissatisfied. When I realized that I was always going to feel that way, and that people more successful than me still felt that way, it was a turning point. External validation is never enough. No one is ever going to hand you a ticket that says, “Congratulations! You made it!” That’s when I decided, “I have to make work that satisfies me, and sometimes the work I’m most satisfied with is not what will get the best reception.” Conversely, sometimes I’ll do something that I’m not so happy with, and it will do really well. It’s a fickle industry. I just have to keep pursuing my ambition and the projects that fulfill me. 

Mathilde wears the Morandi sweater in almond and the Dani top in etched herringbone.

ANOTHER WAY I’VE FOUND VALIDATION is by becoming an activist. A few years ago, I co-founded Moms in Film, a nonprofit that serves women in the industry who are also parents. It’s a way for me to make a tangible difference. It has also given me access to people at the very, very, very top of this field, and it’s really confirmed that women have to work twice as hard for a chance at half the jobs in entertainment that are available to men. For example, we provided free childcare for all the filmmakers at the Sundance Film Festival this year, and a lot of moms—particularly first-time filmmakers—said that they wouldn’t have been able to make it otherwise. They’re not in a position where they can afford to fly a nanny in with them, or pay someone to stay with their kids at home for multiple days on end. It was a nice way to redefine for myself what success means. I think that my nonprofit work has made my artistic work stronger, even though it has taken over a lot of my time.

IT GOES AGAINST MY NATURE TO LET AN EMAIL GO UNANSWERED for 24 hours. But Christy Lamb, a co-founder of Moms in Film, taught me to do my creative work first, right after I get up in the morning. She said, “I do the nonprofit work after I do the creative work, with the hours that are left in the day. And then, whatever I don’t finish gets done the next afternoon.” It’s so much easier to answer emails or work on grant proposals than it is to create new work, and it can take over your whole morning. You think, “I’ll cross this off my list, and get that feeling of accomplishment,” but then your creative practice suffers.

Mathilde wears the Gwen dress in charcoal, the Woolf jardigan in taupe pearl, and the Broadway belt in mahogany.

THE VALUE OF YOUR TIME AND ATTENTION goes way up once you have kids. Time becomes money in a whole new way: If you’re paying for childcare, it costs a lot to leave the house. When I was a brand-new mom and I wasn’t working for a little while, it was hard for me to afford to get a babysitter as often as I wanted to, but there was another artist who lived around the corner from me and had a little girl who was close in age to my son. She watched both kids three mornings a week, and I watched them three afternoons a week. That experience saved us money, for sure, but it also gave me a person who became invested in my career, and I became invested in hers. Every time she would drop off my son, she’d ask, “What did you work on? What did you do?” 

I FUNCTION BETTER WHEN I’M SLIGHTLY OVEREXTENDED. If I’m only working on one project, I have so much riding on that project emotionally that every rejection letter I get is a stab in the heart. Every meeting I go to, I’m reeking of desperation. It’s like, “You have to do this because it’s the only thing in my life that I care about right now.” But when I have multiple projects going at once—say, one is in pre-production and the other is in post—it actually helps both. When I go into an investment meeting to pitch something, and I can also talk about the other thing that I’m currently shooting, they think, “Oh, this person is doing stuff.” People want to fund filmmakers who are already successful. Even if you only have small projects to show them, those demonstrate that you stretch every dollar.

Mathilde wears the Fey top and Soho skirt in black, the Helene necklace, the Jupiter cuff, and the Vanessa pump.

I DO A LOT OF MY WORK IN COFFEE SHOPS. At home, I’m too aware of the dishes in the sink, the unmade bed, the piles of toys that need to be put away. So I leave. Sometimes I turn off the internet, or at least stay away from emails. I have a program on my computer that only allows me to be on Facebook for a few minutes each day, and then you can’t access it anymore for ten hours. Another productivity tip: outsourcing stuff you don’t enjoy. We’re able to afford a cleaning person now, so I just don’t spend time on it anymore.

I’M PART OF AN ACCOUNTABILITY GROUP, where each of us gets paired with another member of the group every week. Scientific research shows that involving another person in the process of a task doubles your chance of getting it done. So every Friday, I make a list of the things I want to get done, and I have to get them done by the following Friday. For each item I don’t get done, I pay $5, and my accountability partner has to pay $5 too—it goes into a collective fund. I know that my partner can also afford the $5, but the idea of forcing somebody to do that and admitting to the whole group that I missed the deadline—it really makes you stick to your commitment.

Mathilde wears the Morandi sweater in almond, the Dani top in etched herringbone, and the Kazuyo necklace.

I THINK A GOOD ARTIST NEEDS TO TAKE PART IN LIFE. If you’re always working, you don’t see your friends or talk to people; you aren’t present in the world in a way that leads to the best art. I need to be curious about the world. I need to see art exhibits and friends and go to sculpture parks. Some people call these things “creative field trips,” or “artist dates.” It’s hard to make time for them, because you’re always thinking about your next deadline. But actually, when I’m in the sculpture park, that’s when I have the idea for my next project.