I decided to go to the cinema school because I thought it was a new sort of media. Nowadays, it's not anymore, but in the '50s, cinema had a half century of age. Today it's more than one century. I thought it was a new media, a new way of telling stories.

Every time you have a crisis in a country you have an extreme wing coming up and proposing solutions. The way to fight them is by doing lots of work teaching people that every time these fascist systems gained power they ended up with big tragedies - lots of blood, lots of police, and lots of misery.

Especially now, the immigrant problem is very dramatic around the world. Because we don't know what to do with them. They're in economic crisis, and there are more and more. There will be more and more. We speak about globalization of economy, but it's also globalization for immigration. Millions of people, they're willing to have a better life. A better life, they cannot have it where they live, so they move.

My life in Greece influenced what I am. My father was in the left because he was against the king and his family, who had created a war against the Turks at the beginning of the last century to revive the Byzantine Empire. For three years, there was fighting, and all my father's friends died. So he hated the royal family.

Make the movies you want to make in Europe is much easier. Of course, you don't have all the money you need, and if you go over budget, then you have to find the money, or you sell your house or something. But you have much more freedom.

The American influence is not so aggressive anymore. The American big business influence in Latin America is not as strong, so people can vote and they can have a different life than before. They can have more liberal, more interesting, and more democratic governments.

I saw money becoming more and more important everywhere. It's one of the most abstract and important inventions by human beings. At the same time, money is capable of extraordinary corruption in every kind of relationship. I tried to see how and why, more and more, money is becoming a religion.