[The director's idea for the film was:] A young American or English girl goes to Tuscany to visit English expatriates. She is on a mission to lose her virginity. That's a mission easily accomplished, if that's the only mission. The story had to be more complicated than that. Because there is so little happening dramatically, there had to be something to keep you curious.

Painting keeps me occupied in those moments when travel can be aimless and even disorienting. Mainly it is a way to register at least some of the new impressions of a foreign place, when its thrilling barrage can sometimes overwhelm you.

Between children and parents there is a difficulty of seeing each other simply as people.

...[She] felt as if she were both a stranger to herself and more herself than she'd ever been.

Illness can make us behave in the most surprising ways.

Change and renewal are themes in life, arent they? We keep growing throughout life.

Off the packed trail we experience the miracle of corn snow, skiing atop the crust, like skiing on an eggshell that has been sprinkled with sugar.