In Bleeding Heart, Jessica Biel plays May, a yoga teacher whose orderly, zen-filled world is turned upside down when she meets her biological sister, Shiva (Zosia Mamet), a prostitute who suffers abuse at the hands of boyfriend and others. Under the backdrop of a Los Angeles equally sordid and sensuous, May sets out to rescue Shiva, while learning about herself along the way. Diane Bell's sophomore feature, which played at the Tribeca Film Festival this year, focuses on two women striving to help each other, and the unbreakable and unmistakable bond between them.

I read you had background in yoga. Could you talk a little bit about that and how it influenced the film?

Diane Bell: I started practicing yoga when I was at university in Scotland where I’m from. It changed my life as it often does for people. I started teaching in a social welfare center for prostitutes and it’s where the germ of the idea for this film came from. I moved to Barcelona and opened a yoga center and did the same thing there, and so in both of those cities, the women that I encountered and the level of violence in which they lived felt... It sounds naive on one hand, but I found it very difficult to digest in our so-called civilized cities where there are women who are taken captive and live with violence, both from partners and clients. These women are vulnerable and in very difficult situations, and as a society we turn our back on them.

I worked at a homeless shelter and [one woman] told me a story of how her mother had come to rescue her from this terrible situation in Las Vegas. Literally her mom came and carried her out. It leaves a very powerful impression, and I wanted to explore what it would look like for a woman to decide ‘I’m going to help this woman-- no matter what.’

You avoided stereotypes in depicting Shiva, who is sex worker, as she prefers to call herself. She doesn't come across as a ‘hooker with a heart of gold’ or an evil sort of femme fatale.

We definitely did strive for that. It was a difficult character to get right and Zosia did a terrific job and had great instincts about her. It’s just a touchy area to go into because all these different clichés, definitely 'hooker with a heart of gold', and trying to get into something that felt truthful.

In the film Shiva is teaching May about herself, while May is trying to save her. May is very naive, squeaky clean, even afraid to say the word prostitute or ask Shiva what it is she does. Biel was sort of perfect in that. How did the casting come about?

We were very lucky and blessed. We knew we had to cast May first, then we would have to work around it.  And it's absolutely crucial that the two women had chemistry. They had to be just different enough where we would believe that they would fall in love with each other, because on some level, the film is a love story. When Jessica Biel's name came up -- she was suggested by our casting director Richard Hicks, who’s fantastic -- my first reaction was that she's too glamorous. It’s terrible to do that, but he was like, 'I think it's kind of perfect!'

Jessica really responded to the script and when I first met her via Skype, almost immediately I thought ‘she's so right for this.' She said, "I really understand this character. At the outset everyone thinks her life is perfect, but it isn’t," and that's how people maybe think about her.

After that it took a while to find Shiva. The woman needed to hit all these different subtle things.  On one hand, a sort of street urchin, but also have this yoga teacher fall in love with her. That was a tricky combination, but the moment Zosia did an audition, I knew she was it. There was no question. It was like, boom. I was so excited, I immediately sent a tape to Jessica. Her audition tape was so impressive and they clicked. They became great friends.

She’s what initially drew me to the film. You see her on the show Girls where she plays a really particular character and so it was interesting to see a turnaround.

She’s a phenomenal actress. We just sort of think that’s how they are, and she's nothing like the characters she plays at all. That’s great acting. She’s got huge career ahead.

Why did you set the movie in LA as opposed to, say, Barcelona?

I’ve lived here for 9 years and it’s the center of yoga. You can’t walk a block in Santa Monica without seeing someone carrying a yoga mat. Everyone has this ‘yoga view’ of the world of ‘everything’s amazing’—which is great and nonsense at the same time. The reason I wrote this was partly a reaction to that. The world is not perfect and I think the film is partly about that. A young woman who is sheltered in her existence, in this world, who is suddenly confronted with a woman whose life isn’t amazing and far from perfect. And that for her is the beginning of a huge unraveling and lesson.

I noticed that Los Angeles here also has at times a seedy, almost noir vibe. You know something is lurking under these perfect sunsets and skies.

The noir was very deliberate and this was the light and shadow of Los Angeles. On one side there's this affluence bubble and the other side there's a lot of poverty, obviously a huge sex industry, and a lot of violence. Those two things coexist in this weird way. I think they would collide but they often don’t. People live in one or the other and don’t partake in the other side of it. It was definitely conscious dealing of this being a story in Los Angeles. I don’t know if you can do it in another place, if other places have those two qualities so deeply ingrained in them.

Can we talk about the car?

It’s another character. It’s a Rambler Marlin that I borrowed form a friend of mine. When we were getting ready to shoot, I realized there's a hell of a lot of car scenes. Most people drive a Prius, but it's just the most boring-looking car on screen and in life, and good God, most of the movie you’re looking at the Prius, so I’m like, we've got to get a good car! Everybody fell in love with it. I think there was originally some discussion of the car in the film. We did create a backstory because it was like how the hell did she get a car like this? It’s not expensive, but it is very striking.

Were there any movies that were touchstones for you when making this? Particularly any that dealt with violence or abuse?

More than that, my touchstone was Thelma and Louise. The movie has very serious issues, but also I wanted to make a movie that was kind of fun and celebrated female friendship and sisterhood, and what woman can do and be for each other. I get really sick of these men who come along and save them.  I think Bleeding Heart is a movie-movie; I don’t think it feels completely real. It is a fantasy and references things, like you said noir film. I just want to see a movie where two women go on a grand adventure together, and empower and transform each other. That to me is real and happening all the time, but we don’t often see on the screen.