I think if the extremists were happy with my films, I'd start to worry.

I think this is one of those issues where the deeper you dig, the murkier it gets - and everyone who has spent a lot of time thinking about these issues.

I loved watching documentaries and had wanted to try making one for years - I'd just put it off as other opportunities arose. But I felt like time was running out for me if I wanted to do it.

I think that any time you are making a film you have to realize that the people you are talking with might be giving you misinformation. Sometimes it is factually incorrect and for that, it's important to me to check it out and not let things find their way into the film without being challenged, either by me, or by another character, or by evidence that you might see on screen.

I have a point of view on the issues, but it's a complex point of view that really can't be summed up in a sentence or two. I'm not being intentionally vague or mushy, it's just that - in my mind - the real answer is complicated.

Most of this film, however, is about interpretation - are these people terrorists or freedom fighters? Are they good or bad? Is cutting timber good or bad? And I don't feel like the answers to those questions are simple, so we don't try to answer them for the audience. I wanted to elicit the strongest - and most heartfelt - arguments from the characters in the film and let those arguments bang up against the strongest arguments of their opponents.

I've always been curious in why different people believe the things they do and do the things they do - in the different ways that people live.