The smaller and younger kids are, the more patient you have to be. But if they're gifted, then it's a wonderful present that you're given by having a child like that in your film... more so than in the case of actors because, for example, if you ask them to play a lion, they don't then play a lion, they actually are a lion. So, a gifted child is something very special. On the other hand, if a child has no gifts in that way it's absolutely hopeless and there's nothing you can do!

What we're doing for another person is more important than what we're feeling for them.

In terms of cinema and filmmaking, there are certainly the unexpected gifts that the actors bestow on you. Film is always a question of compromises with respect to what you originally intended.

I'm not really a happy person. It's a question of temperament. I have a tendency toward melancholy. You can feel quite happily melancholic.

It's difficult because you can't generalise about these things. But in essence, you deal with children as simply as you deal with actors - you have to show a certain sort of respect. You deal with them lovingly and protect them, but if you protect them enough then they're open to engage with what you want to do with them.

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.

I never suffered from the absence of a father. On the contrary, as a child I was more inclined to see men as a disturbing factor. It made things difficult for me when I started working as a director.