I often say to my students in workshops that if they are trying to find literary inspiration, they should not go and read novels, because novels are more appropriate for series. Where as they should read short stories - that's the right format for you to be able to actually display the narrative in a film.

When you take a tree that is rooted in the ground, and transfer it from one place to another, the tree will no longer bear fruit. And if it does, the fruit will not be as good as it was in its original place. This is a rule of nature. I think if I had left my country, I would be the same as the tree.

I can only display what I've been nurtured with, which is this worldview which has become my view. If I displayed anything different from it in my work, I wouldn't deserve this heritage.

What I am trying to say is that it is not without any value. The value of copies is that they can direct us towards the original. I was recently at the Louvre Museum and I was filming people who were viewing the Mona Lisa. I noticed the number of ordinary people, astonished, mouths agape, standing still for long stretches looking at the work, and I wondered, "Where does this come from? Are these people all art connoisseurs?" They are like me; through the years, we've seen this work in our schoolbooks or art history books, but when we stand before the original, we hold our breath.

Cinema seats make people lazy. They expect to be given all the information. But for me, question marks are the punctuation of life.

The film [Close Up] made itself, to a large extent. The characters involved were very real, I wasn't directing the actors so much as being directed by them. So it was a very particular film.

Not that I ever felt the necessity of proving that all human beings suffer the same way, feel joy the same way, but it happened on my way - when I get close to these people, just by the simple intervention of translation I can actually reach them and ask them something, and their reaction is as I expected. I see that the relationship goes so smoothly, and I realize that cultural languages and specificities are nothing but simple obstacles that you can easily overcome. It's obvious that human beings are the same wherever they are.