I used to live in a little city by the sea, and the feeling of isolation - it was not like living in Paris or London. It was a bit apart from the main city, and [it gave me] this feeling of isolation and also being close to nature, with nature as a surrounding and also a frontier, from the society of the world.

I am very much interested in fairy tales. I guess that most of the films I like to do have this kind of aspect.

When I was a child, I had a quiet, protected childhood.

I used to live in a little city by the sea, and the feeling of isolation - it was not like living in Paris or London. It was a bit apart from the main city, and [it gave me] this feeling of isolation and also being close to nature, with nature as a surrounding and also a frontier, from the society of the world.

I try to simplify things for the children. For instance, [I arrange] for them to have almost no dialogue, or to somehow give them very precise indications, because usually they ask for that.

I'm very interested in talking about children in this moment where you are going to become a teenager, and I think it's very relevant to use a fairy tale to talk about that.

I think sometimes there are films where I understand what they are about, but there are also some mysterious areas in the film where I haven't got the whole image and I haven't got everything. And then it stays much longer with me, because I have to somehow put myself much more into the film to get it. And so this is what I'm trying to do with my films.