Shot by Sofia’s mother Eleanor this documentary shows something of the strain of shooting a period piece, but is a far cry from the tumultuous portrait of her husband in Hearts of Darkness

It is 20 years since the release of Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette starring Kirsten Dunst; it is a supportively unjudging, unironised study of the queen’s early years before the 1789 revolution, lavishly and accurately costumed, shot on location at Versailles and based on the Antonia Fraser biography – but also subversively and amusingly using pop tracks from the 70s and 80s on the soundtrack. It got a storm of booing from French critics, reportedly annoyed at the way their history had been reduced to a music video and fashion shoot with no French actors involved. Or hardly any.

In fact, for all the lack of political grit, the film was interesting and accomplished, and deservedly has a fanbase – and it is to that constituency that this making-of documentary from the director’s mother Eleanor Coppola is really addressed. It is basically a sweet family home movie on digital video which shows something of the strain and the longueurs of shooting a demanding period picture, but tactfully not seeing anything really explosive or bad-tempered. It is very far from Eleanor Coppola’s sensational behind-the-scenes film Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse about the tumultuous creation of Apocalypse Now, directed by her husband Francis Ford Coppola.

The director talks about what she learnt from her mother, working with a rookie Tim Burton, and 20 years of her cult classic Marie Antoinette

Hello, I’m Cherry, I’m 14 and an aspiring film-maker. I love how your films capture what it feels like to be a young girl growing up. We hear so much about the famous men in your family, but how have the successful women in your family inspired and influenced you? Your films capture the experience of what it is to be a young girl in a way words often can’t. CherryEmma
That’s nice to hear, thank you. I feel like I got a lot from my mom about being true to yourself, following what you’re interested in and seeing the beauty in your surroundings. My mom always noticed odd details in life, so a lot of my films are made up of those kinds of things.

Your films beautifully capture the isolation of hotel rooms – spaces completely detached from a character’s past or future. If you were forced into that stillness and could choose to preserve only one cherished memory while erasing another for ever, what would they be? Malpractice1
It’s hard to pick a memory, but recently we had a party in Versailles for the anniversary of Marie Antoinette and New Order played. When they started playing Ceremony [from the soundtrack] and the lights went on, I just know that in the future when I have to remember a happy memory, that’s going to be it. Even painful memories are part of making you who you are, and you learn from them, so I can’t think of anything I would erase.

A new documentary by Eleanor Coppola goes behind the scenes on her daughter’s 2006 punk classic, Marie Antoinette. To mark its release, Sofia Coppola will be taking your questions

To say that Sofia Coppola grew up on screen would be an understatement. The youngest child and only daughter of filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola and documentary-maker Eleanor Coppola, she appeared in all three Godfather films: as the baby being christened in 1972’s The Godfather, as a child on the steamboat in 1974’s The Godfather Part II, and, aged 19, as Mary Corleone in 1990’s The Godfather Part III.

In between came small roles in several of her dad’s films, including 1983’s The Outsiders and Rumble Fish, 1984’s The Cotton Club and 1986’s Peggy Sue Got Married, in which she played Kathleen Turner’s younger sister Nancy. She also popped up all over 1990s music videos, playing a wild-eyed Joan Crawford in Sonic Youth’s 1990 Mildred Pierce, a troubled drifter in the Black Crowes’ 1992 Sometimes Salvation, one of Madonna’s clubbing friends in 1992’s Deeper and Deeper, and an injured gymnast in the Chemical Brothers’ 1997 Elektrobank, directed by her then-boyfriend Spike Jonze.

Fairyland is a bittersweet film about a girl brought up by her gay father in a blizzard of glitter and feather boas in 1970s San Francisco. Its makers discuss its resonance, its tragedies – and their own boho childhoods

When Sofia Coppola logs on to our video call, her friend and fellow film-maker Andrew Durham – whose directorial debut, Fairyland, she has produced – is telling me about being nine or 10 years old, and accidentally outing his father as gay.

“Have you heard this story, Sofia?” he asks breezily from Los Angeles. “About Pietro? The Italian guy that my dad was maybe having an affair with when we lived in England?” At home in New York, Coppola furrows her brow. “Uh, yeah. A long time ago, I think. I forgot …”