I don't try to make a place in history at all! People put me in the history of cinema because my first film, La pointe-courte, was so ahead of some other filmmakers. Many filmmakers have made resurgent work, and I was just a little ahead of the time.

Sometimes I want to work with a DP, sometimes I want to work myself. I go to 35mm, 16mm, it's all the same, but it depends on what you want to tell and what are the tools you need.

It's interesting work for me to tell my life, as a possibility for other people to relate it to themselves - not so much to learn about me.

To change history is very slow. The first two times I came to the States - black people didn't have the right to vote.

In my films I always wanted to make people see deeply. I don't want to show things, but to give people the desire to see.

It's nice to think that we have in ourselves the energy. It's somewhere, but it's sleeping sometimes. I try to wake it up when I need it.

People think you are an orphan when you are a child, and don't believe that old people can feel that they are orphans.