Maimouna Doucoure

“Streamers are a great way to get my stories out and share my messages with more people.”

“I met over a hundred preteens who told me their stories. I asked them how they felt about their femininity in today's society. I wanted to know how they dealt with their self-image at a time when social media is so important, and they have access to so much information and so many images.”

“For me, what counts the most is my film. I can express myself and therefore take care of myself through my art. Cinema not only heals me, but it can change the world.”

“When I was young, I also saw a lot of injustices around me lived by women.”

“We ask these young girls to grow up too fast. In the society where they grow up, they are asked to grow up too fast, and everything pushes them in that direction. The media creates pressure.”

“I was at a community event in Paris a few years ago when a group of young girls came on the stage dressed and dancing in a very risque way. They were only 11 years old, and their performance was shocking.”

“Television is a sort of mirror of society, but for me, I never saw my reflection in it. Which makes it quite difficult afterwards to open up all the imaginative possibilities.”

“I would never judge another woman. For me, being a feminist means that even if we don't agree on everything, we should fight for each woman to be free to choose who she wants to be.”

“When young girls can get 400,000 likes by doing a sexy selfie... we have to offer them another way of being. To dream of being female astronauts, engineers or presidents.”

“My father is a street sweeper, my mother works in a shop.”

“Puberty is such a confusing time. You are still a child, with all that wonderful naivete and innocence, but your body is changing, and you're self-conscious and curious about its impact on others all at the same time.”

“All my life, I have juggled two cultures: Senegalese and French.”

“Love and self-esteem are constructed through likes and followers.”

“It's important to be vigilant at all stages of the making of a film. The theme of a work should be represented properly.”

“We, as adults, have not given children the tools to grow up healthy in our society.”

“When I was 10 and 11, my dream was to be a boy. I saw that there were so many injustices that women had to live with around me. I didn't want to have that; I wanted to have the freedom that little boys had.”

“Cuties' is universal, and it raises concerns that involve all world societies.”

“I want to say to this guy and everyone who thinks that femininity means you don't have the power to think, to write, lead and create, women are capable of doing everything.”

“I'm a French director, but what's important for me is that my stories have a universal message, whatever language they're filmed in.”

“Today you have that exposition of your body on social media and you also have this big competition of finding 'likes' and followers and that is for me a new kind of finding love.”