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.

As a private person, professionally I am invisible.

The film [the white Ribbon] does try to use German Fascism as an example, but not specifically Fascism... the results of German Fascism. It shows how people are prepared or indoctrinated for an ideology... people who are already in a state of repression who have been humiliated by society and who clasp at a straw that's offered to them. And how that's then developed into a form of indoctrination.

The dumber people are, the more they feel the need for a broad set of shoulders they can lay their head against.

I never use soundtrack; it is always part of the story.

In German. I'm more sensitized to the details, to the emotions. In English, I wouldn't detect as much nuance.

I give the spectator the possibility of participating. The audience completes the film by thinking about it; those who watch must not be just consumers ingesting spoon-fed images.