When I do only images, people don't connect with the images because the images are too weird to understand. But when I explain the weird images with straight words, then all of a sudden there is a tension between the two that the audience wants to see.

I have decided that I want animation to be taken seriously; that is the goal of my life. I believe that animation is a very important medium to tell stories, not just for kids but for adults.

When industry people see something different they don't know what to do with it, so filmmakers who make films about women, they kind of fall through the cracks. If a woman filmmaker makes film about war, like [Kathryn] Bigelow, they say "Okay, this is a war film, it has ninety percent men in it, we know what to do with it." But then she still gets attacked for not doing it properly. [...] But even though it bothers me I don't want to dwell on the sex and gender thing.

Like every normal person, I hate my voice. And I am not the only one who hates my voice. The voiceover gets a lot of strong reactions. A lot of people love it, and a few people truly hate it and pronounce the films are unwatchable because of my Latvian accent. But it also has a certain level of theatricality, and everything is important for a manic character.

I animated everything traditionally, on paper. I love how the texture of paper looks (it also matches textures of papier-mâché) and I love the tactile process.

I define art as a work created by a human that has a unique point of view and discovers something that was not there before.

The fantastical images in my works are descriptive in a different way - a metaphorical way - that removes you from reality. Then, this visually removed point of view allows you to deal with a very heavy subject.