Film is 24 lies per second at the service of truth, or at the service of the attempt to find the truth.

Films that are entertainments give simple answers but I think that's ultimately more cynical, as it denies the viewer room to think. If there are more answers at the end, then surely it is a richer experience.

Even the most elitist director or author who claims that he doesn't care if his works are seen or not, then I have to think that he's either a liar or a hypocrite.

I'm interested in seeing films that confront me with new things, with films that make me question myself, with films that help me to reflect on subjects that I hadn't thought about before, films that help me progress and advance.

Classicism becomes avant-garde when everyone else is doing their utmost to develop new stylistic forms. And I think it's healthy to return to classical forms.

My films are intended as polemical statements against the American 'barrel down' cinema and its dis-empowerment of the spectator. They are an appeal for a cinema of insistent questions instead of false (because too quick) answers, for clarifying distance in place of violating closeness, for provocation and dialogue instead of consumption and consensus.

Well, the first thing I had to do was to read a lot. First of all, about education... and looking at education from the Middle Ages right through to the 20th Century. The second major area was country life in the 19th Century, which I don't know much about these days.