I'm very fatalistic about life. Whatever happens, happens. The imperative for me is that I do my contribution for my people, for my culture. I still want to make films for them. I still want to make films that confront our struggles.

The novelistic attribute of my work is very much like the Russian way of creating novels. Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky - their work has so many gaps. But for the reader, you cannot erase those gaps because they are important. They contextualize the whole struggle. My cinema is like that.

I'm very fatalistic about life. Whatever happens, happens. The imperative for me is that I do my contribution for my people, for my culture. I still want to make films for them. I still want to make films that confront our struggles.

When I was trying to create this so-called Lav Diaz verité, it just happened. At some point, I became very comfortable with the one frame, with the single take. It just happened. I didn't plan it. I was looking for my own aesthetic, my own perspective, my own voice, and it happened.

I make films, and festivals, museums, and academia are embracing the work. It will be heard. It's bound to happen because cinema is universal. You create it, some people will notice it, some people will watch it.

Even if I made pornography, the trauma would show, though. It will always be there because it's my verité. It's my kind of narrative, it's my kind of storytelling. It's not style; it's just there.

I'm interested in the cultural thing - music, then eventually cinema. I think it's part of my struggle as a cultural worker. I'm not into the armed thing. I cannot be violent.