In a fiction film, we know at some level we've suspended disbelief. In a documentary, we know that we're watching a drama unfold in the world because of the movie we're watching that is real. That has enormous stakes for the whole society, and we, by the act of watching, complete the story.

Performance is always oriented towards a spectator, towards an imagined audience and I was thinking who is their imagined audience?

I always have said, you know it's not for me to forgive or to condemn, I'm a filmmaker.

I really believe that the past is beyond our grasp and what is essential about the past is something unspeakable.

There's a tradition of reenactment in documentary which is about sort of illustrating what the past might have been like.

When you approach someone as a human being, truly and try to be as open as safety allows, some of the bigger reenactments with a whole army of paramilitary people participating, I couldn't say my feelings openly in front of everybody, without it being dangerous for my crew.

I need to trust myself and go where my instincts tell me, and to be as wild and free as possible in my creative decisions.