When we start shooting I don't have rehearsals with characters at all. So, rather than pulling them towards myself, I travel closer to them; it's very much closer to the real person than anything I try to create. So I give them something but I also take from them.

When I find the character, I try to spend time with them and get to know them very well. Therefore my notes are not from the character that I had in my mind before, but are instead based on the people I've met in real life.

Film is very much a universal and common voice, and we can't limit it to one particular culture.

As soon as people enter a theater they must become moron consumers who must be fed information.

I didn't just see myself as a film director here [in Life And Nothing More], but also as an observer of people who had been condemned to death.

I have somewhat lost my enthusiasm in the last years. Mainly because film students using digital video these days have not really produced anything which is more than superficial or simplistic; so I have my doubts.

I am still very surprised that I managed to make that film [Close Up]. When I actually look back on that film, I really feel that I was not the director but instead just a member of the audience.