Sofia Coppola, a director whose career stretches back decades, is disappointed in Hollywood.
In a BBC interview released Friday, the filmmaker voiced her frustration at the gender disparity in studio budgets.
“I just see all these men getting hundreds of millions of dollars and then I’m fighting for a tiny fraction of that,” Coppola told the outlet. “I think it’s just left over from the way the culture of that business is.”
She added, “I’m always fighting to get it and I’m just happy to get to make my movies independently and find people that believe in them.”
Coppola was born to acclaimed director Francis Ford Coppola, but made her own mark with 1999′s “The Virgin Suicides” and 2003′s “Lost in Translation.”
Still, as her male peers are typically offered bigger budgets, Sofia Coppola said she took a more frugal approach for her recent film “Priscilla,” with less than $20 million.
“There’s a challenge and a freedom in making things small because if you have a big budget, you have a lot of input from studio executives, and I would never be able to make a movie like that,” she told the BBC. “So I have that freedom. And then you have to be really crafty.”
Coppola added that “it was really hard,” but that she had “the best team” around her.
The film, which explores a story of female agency in a patriarchal world, was adapted from Priscilla Presley’s “Elvis and Me” memoir. The book recounts her romance with Elvis Presley and how they met when the singer was 24 and she was 14 — although she maintains that he “respected” their age gap.
“Priscilla,” which was reportedly shot in 30 days, earned rave reviews and a Golden Globe nomination. Poignantly, Coppola used Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You” in the film — a song that Parton once refused to let Elvis Presley cover after his manager requested half of the publishing rights.
“To me it is really important to have Dolly Parton at the end, to have a woman’s voice at the end,” said Coppola.