The foreign-language Oscar is something that doesn't go to the producer or the director; it goes to the country.

If you are not a New Yorker, when you arrive there for the first time you have the impression you grew up there because you've seen it in so many films. It's been filmed from every single angle and by so many different filmmakers that you know the streets, the sidewalks, the architecture, the cabs, the temper of the people.

It wouldn't have existed without France, and it's a French initiative. As a filmmaker, I owe everything to France - I got accepted at a French film school that takes six directors a year. Once you're in, you make films under the eye of people in the industry. You grow up in front of their eyes.

When you make a film, you come to say something.

There was something, which was the turning point: I felt very strongly that women were sexualized, and perceived like they are sexual in every move, and it started off really early.

The foreign-language Oscar is something that doesn't go to the producer or the director; it goes to the country.

There's something about all the people who are on a mission for purity and chastity, which I find very questionable.