Don’t get depressed about not being where you want to be. This nagging feeling of anxiety is actually called ambition. Ambition is your friend.

Try to produce your own films, avoid directing for hire.

When I was planning Family Viewing, the Ontario Film Development Corporation came into existence.

The biggest problem with the independent film sector in Toronto is that they find themselves having to make that budget show on screen.

Sometimes you think you want to know something, but it's actually more exciting and more resonant when you have to try [and figure it out].

I think the situation in Toronto is such that there are funding organizations which make it easy for a film to raise more money than it needs and very often that works against a film.

I’m Armenian, and April 24th was another commemoration of the genocide of Armenia people by Turkey. The perpetrator never admitted the crime. I was raised with that, this question: how do you actually find the truth of such a traumatic event? I'm obsessed with that issue.