Reynolds departs from the idea that a film is always several films at once. On the one hand there is the story that is told and on the other, a document of the people, the place and the atmosphere that this fiction generates. The films reflect the decisions of the author, but at the same time they are the record of a moment in the lives of the people and the landscape put at the service of the story. Instead of working for the story, it is the story that puts to work the elements that make up the film. Reynolds is precisely interested in this subtext of the film document.
In Billie and Nilo, Reynolds asks, through the portrait of a child and his relationship with adults, what would happen if the relationship between adult and child were reversed and it was the adult who depended on the child, the latter being who had control and knowledge of the world.