I consider all my films an experiment, at least in my mind.

Because I'm the author of my screenplays I know what I'm looking for. It's true that I can be stubborn in demanding that I get what I want, but it's also a question of working with patience and love.

As a European filmmaker, you can not make a genre film seriously. You can only make a parody.

And if there was one title that could be applied to all my films, it would be 'Civil War' - not civil war in the way we know it, but the daily war that goes on between us all.

I’ve been accused of ‘raping’ the audience in my films, and I admit to that freely — all movies assault the viewer in one way or another.

I try to get closer to reality, to get close to the contradictions. The cinema world can be a real world rather than a dream world.

Every form of anti-Semitism, every form of xenophobia plays on the fear of the unknown, and unfortunately there are all too many politicians who know how to manipulate that. The dumber people are, the more they feel the need for a broad set of shoulders they can lay their head against.