(part of a multi-article series about the 2014 Fabrique des Cinémas program at the Cannes Festival)

THE PITCH: A young peasantwoman tries to lift herself out of poverty by turning a rich but blind cousin's predicament to her advantage.

Since working as a make-up artist and learning moviemaking on the fly are you now fully settled in your role as filmmaker ? After working so hard and independently on my first film, it's hard to consider myself anything but a filmmaker. Being that Laos has little-to-no cinema scene or support, everything had to be done by myself and my tiny team, around the clock. We didn't have any infrastructure that I could fall back on.