Ilona Vanouplines

In a world that often mistakes softness for weakness, I embrace it as courage.

For me, softness is not a lack, but a force. It is a way of seeing, of holding space, of daring to stay open when the world tells you to toughen up.

As a cinematographer, I choose to let this tenderness guide me. It shapes how I move with my camera, how I listen, and how I look for images that hold both vulnerability and strength.

I think tenderness and resilience belong together. I hold them side by side: the raw with the poetic, the intimate with the political, the fragile with the fierce. Film becomes a place where both can live without shutting the other out. It doesn’t require simplicity. It can be honest, layered, messy, and still feel true.

I’m drawn to small things people do when they don’t think anyone is watching: gestures, silences, glances that say more than words. Documentary lets me follow these moments in their simplest form. Fiction and commercials challenge me to bring that same authenticity into a constructed world. I search for images that don’t just represent reality, but invite us to feel it more deeply.

My camera is an extension of my curiosity. On set or traveling, it’s the same. Light, landscapes, and faces become pieces of a larger search: how to make images that feel human, not just pretty.

Filmmaking is trusting on another. People trust me with their stories. I want my images to create a space where we can see each other as we are, not in spite of our differences, but because of them. That’s where connection starts. And maybe something shifts.