The irony of a director going to film festivals is you never get to see any of the films.

I decided to be a filmmaker when I was 12. I had utter clarity that this would be my life.

I think people enjoy finding out something genuinely new.

The more uncompromisingly specific you are the more you end up touching the bigger universal truths.

I think directors can become overly infatuated by gilt and gold, and the word "lavish" and everything being magnificent.

Actors enjoy being treated as ordinary people.

I was always obsessed with finding truly researched images to add authenticity, out of that came something totally contemporary and modern. Research is very key to my process because over and over again, reality provides more interesting images than you could have invented.