Making a film that is in seven days of one week is not a new idea.

I always start with characters rather than with a plot, which many critics would say is very obvious from the lack of plot in my films - although I think they do have plots - but the plot is not of primary importance to me, the characters are.

When I'm trying to imagine something, I have a few elements, a few ideas, maybe a certain actor or actress I want to create a certain type of character for, or maybe a certain place.

Life has no plot, why must films or fiction?

I wanted to make an Indian character who wasn't either a) the savage that must be eliminated, the force of nature that's blocking the way for industrial progress, or b) the noble innocent that knows all and is another cliche. I wanted him to be a complicated human being.

The filmmaker Amos Poe was a huge inspiration for me by making guerrilla-style punk films on the streets of New York and - well, it's just a lot of painters and artists and filmmakers all within that scene, and it's very, very important to me.

I still consider myself to be an amateur filmmaker. And I say that because in the Latin origin of the word amateur is the word love, and it's love of a form, whereas professional implies something you do for money or for work.