I absolutely refuse to accept the fact that any country in the world goes into a kind of film-making crisis. What happens is they lose confidence, they lose focus and the young film-makers of any particular generation can very easily get lost in that mix. It's happened in Italy, happened in France, happened in the U.K. during my lifetime.

My belief is that no movie, nothing in life, leaves people neutral. You either leave them up or you leave them down.

At least in the West, politicians, corporations and media moguls can no longer take for granted their power to control the public discourse - and have it go unchallenged.

What is certain is that plurality and diversity are not, and never can be, a natural 'byproduct' of unregulated market forces.

Film and the other creative industries are being transformed by digital technologies.

The most important thing I think teachers can do for young people is to make them inquiring, is to ensure that they know how to gather information, that they check information and they take their information from a multiplicity of sources.

A country that fails to value its teachers, fails to value its future.