Betrayals during war are childlike compared with our betrayals during peace.

[Abbas Kiarostami] is a great artist and a poet. I sometimes think that if Samuel Beckett made films, he'd make them like Kiarostami makes them.

The only lesson to extract from any civil war is that it's pointless and futile and ugly, and that there is nothing glamorous or heroic about it. There are heroes, but the causes are never heroic.

The BFI exists to celebrate all poets of world cinema, of the past and present.

Of course, like all film-makers I've been mesmerised by cinema since I was a child.

The problem with growing up in a cafe was the cafe never closed, my parents worked every day of the year from morning to night. So it was a big menagerie of kids, business and cooking!

As a teenager I was obsessed with music and with writing and performing songs.