Somewhat dramatic things happen, and you don't even always notice them — that's what life is.

What is filmmaking but groping in the dark?

There is an audience out there for literate films - slower, more observant, more human films, and they deserve to be made.

Comedy is a wonderful device for distance that allows us to look at what we're talking about with some degree of distance and hopefully with a bit more perspective and honesty. With many exceptions, a movie with no jokes is far less appealing to me.

Independent means one thing to me: It means that regardless of the source of financing, the director's voice is extremely present. It's such a pretentious term, but it's auteurist cinema. Director-driven, personal, auteurist... Whatever word you want. It's where you feel the director, not a machine, at work. It doesn't matter where the money comes from. It matters how much freedom the director has to work with his or her team. That's how I personally define independent movies.

I definitely in filmmaking more and more find writing and directing a means to harvest material for editing. It's all about editing.

I never wanted money worries to slow me down or make me take a job I didn't want.