I like to get something that is impossible to verbally order. Sometimes it's something the person is not even conscious of, and it's something you could never ask of them specifically. It's just there.

This is going to sound crazy, especially in America where there is a total inflation of the word "love," but in a sense you have to love the people in front of the camera. There has to be trust between the one who is behind the camera and the people on the other side, so that they can relax. They have to feel they are safe, and that way they don't have to pretend just because they are scared.

I had worked in fiction a lot before I started making documentaries, but when I was around 32 or 33-years-old I suddenly got so fed up with the world of fiction, which is so money-centered.

It's said that if two documentary filmmakers meet they talk about the world, if two fiction filmmakers meet they talk about the million that they don't have to make their film.

I think that too often we, film directors, think that a big epic novel and feature film are the same. It's a lie. A feature film is much closer to a short story actually.

I don't think the concept of "directing actors" exists in the sense that if you get what you order from an actor you'll always get bad acting. Every actor is scared just like a regular person.

If you take a big epic novel and you shoot it, when you get to the editing room you notice that it has 2 million climaxes, which fill the whole 90 or 100 minutes. Then you realize you can't cut them out because if somebody is dying and you cut that out it seems like they just disappear from the film.