I like to make films, but the only reason I do is because I'm a very bad musician.

You hear about bombings in other countries, or numbers like "10,000 people died" - you hear that number and you think, "Well, I saw that yesterday in a film, and that didn't look so bad." Younger viewers, in particular, lose perspective on reality.

Really, I'm a neurotic perfectionist. Every single word in the script is the one that I want.

I never deny a true experience in one shot.

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.

There's nothing better than being in a film that translates to audiences and makes people think and feel good and walk away with great revelations in their own life of some kind. But when the process and the experience and the fun of that matches, it's a good feeling.

My country has been wracked with violence for a long time. Just to see all the violence on the news makes you sick. It's true that violence is in our nature, but I try to explore deeply where it comes from and where it goes and what it creates. Not in a moralistic or preachy way, but just to observe the real consequences of violence in a human being or in a society.