I've always been a fiction filmmaker and I've been heading in the direction of fiction filmmaking, doing documentaries along the way.

I don't know if people realize how hard I work, because sometimes people ask me for my secret. The truth is that I don't have any secrets apart from the fact that I've been directing theater and film for twenty years and trying at every stage to make my work better.

The world needs more women filmmakers, so we have to keep encouraging ourselves and one another, and eventually things must get easier for us.

I think we've reached that point where we understand medically what we are doing to ourselves with these sports. In football, it's kind of hard to get the access that you want for the story and, of course, it's very long-term: the effects of the repeat concussions really don't hit until decades afterwards, whereas the traumatic injuries in extreme sports are very immediate. I realized Traumatic Brain Injury was a fascinating and important story that not had been told very much. I wanted to know more.

Some documentaries are made by people who are driven more by one particular story, or have different backgrounds or ambitions, but I'm always looking for projects that let me be the best filmmaker I can be, and to be stretched and grow further.

My main trick is to work with amazing people. It's a long and twisty journey and you need people that really are amazing and have this rare gift of honesty and courage and really open up.

I have always been interested in garbage: What it says about us. What in there embarrasses us, and what we can't bear to part with. Where it goes and how much of it there is. How it endures. What it might be like to work with it every day.