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 can easily go to America, or I can easily escape to some places in Europe with friends. But the place for me is the Philippines. The struggle is there. I cannot turn my back on it. It's a responsibility.

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.

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.

Cinema is the greatest mirror of humanity's struggle. You see this alternative world, but you're part of it. Everybody is part of it. This is our world.

"Filipino" is the Spanish side of our history. The islands were named after King Felipe, so we became known as Filipinos. It's a brand, it's a name. But we're Malays. Before colonizers came to our shores, we were Malays. My praxis is about being Malay - the struggle of the Malays before we became Filipinos.

There is no border. I'm branding my films as Malay cinema, but it's just about cinema. Everything that I make is about humanity's struggle, so there is no border, really.