I feel relief about the Oscars. You know, you're not in this business for prizes but, okay, I missed one.

I didn't want the film to be didactic, and this is tough because if you look at the list of issues, you have immigration, the education system, you have the grieving, you have suicide. I think what saved me were two things. I tried to do everything with some level of restraint and let the spectator make up his own mind.

I think cinema is the memory and the imagination of the country. Take the memory and imagination out of an individual, and he stops being an individual. I think its the same thing for a country.

I work, play and do everything in French.

At the end, what I like is that it's the girl's decision to go back in the room. She needs a hug, she wants a hug, she asks for a hug and he gives it to her. For me, it's like an act of resistance to go there and to transgress the taboo and to do what started the whole thing in the beginning. It was supposedly a hug that started this whole drama between the character of Simon and the teacher.

It's a romantic view of Canada. It's like Michael Moore saying we don't lock our doors in Canada. I lock my door mainly because my girlfriend wants me to lock the door, but mind you we lock our doors. It is a little simplistic to say that we blend easily back home with other cultures. It's difficult, but I think it's mainly a big city phenomenon.

Any place where you have to deal with many social actors like a school - you have the parents, the Ministry of Education, the school board, and the teachers - you need all kinds of sets and rules. You're trying to foresee anything that can happen and everything becomes really rigid. They don't want to talk about death because they don't want to overwhelm the children, but that has already happened, so you're not going to overwhelm them more.