Every kid comes to a point in his life, where you listen to your Dad, but then you go into the street and you start listening to the views of other people. You're looking for role models. It's like that moment when you step out.

The violence at the end is about personal torture.

Every kid comes to a point in his life, where you listen to your Dad, but then you go into the street and you start listening to the views of other people. You're looking for role models. It's like that moment when you step out.

There were more people against going into Iraq than there were going into the Falklands... but the shame I carry as a British resident, was that it was a war handled in the media as if it were a World Cup summer. Like when England go into the World Cup, there are Union Jacks on the papers, and you can look at headlines from the time and it sounded just like that. Ultimately, I was privy to footage from ITN archives - that wasn't shown on television - of the people we were fighting, and it was shameful. It was bullying. It was really horrible. How could we have been proud of winning that?

In the Eighties, the landscape was changing. No one knew if they had a future. It's not like now. There was no satellite. Kids were still out on the streets playing all the time. For me, it was the last great hurrah! People don't take those chances anymore. Everyone's far too reserved. Men look like women, women look like men.

I'm obviously first and foremost a British filmmaker on a global scale, but when it comes to narrowing it down, I really feel like my voice is in the Midlands and outside of London.

In London, there must be thousands of people in the business of making films, whereas in Nottingham or Sheffield, you're probably talking about below a hundred. So there aren't thousands of people scrapping for the same money and for the same jobs. I went out in Nottingham the other night and there's a really beautiful community of people who are really supportive. It's not this back-stabbing thing, high-rent, high-cost, high-tension. Up here we are independent filmmakers and there's a lovely sense of camaraderie.