I understand when there's no money for the arts in the government, but it should maybe pressure private companies to support more filmmakers. These exhibition and distribution companies are huge, and there might be incentives for them to invest more in Mexican cinema.

I didn't have a normal academic career. I never studied cinema. I learned from life.

How can [actors] learn their lines and be honest in front of 30 people and all the lights? It makes me cry sometimes. I can't understand how they can be joking with me 30 seconds before, and 40 seconds later they're giving me all this incredible feeling.

I saw what I could [in Mexico City], but we rarely got anything other than big, mainstream American films.

I made commercials for corporations like Volkswagen and Coca-Cola, but I was always the one to write them, too, which was a very good exercise, because I learned to tell little stories.

I think every beautiful tale in the world hides the truth and reveals it little by little.

I just wanted to show the migrants as complex humans with flaws and weakness, with good and bad things, and show that they're parents and family men. I wanted to show them with everything, as they are.