Without dreams we would be cows in a field, and I don't want to live like that. I live my life or I end my life with this project.

I'm very, very curious about how people live under the volcano, how they handle the permanence of danger.

I always felt completely confident - it's like in a feature film, knowing your principle character is extremely well-cast. I had that same confidence in Clive [Oppenheimer].

In my films, I hope there are a few moments where you feel almost illuminated, like in a state of ecstasy, stepping out of yourself, beyond yourself and perceiving something which is only, in the case of cinema, possible in collective dreams.

With actors, normally I don't like to have any conversation about background and about motivations and all this.

The universe is not harmonious: you know that by looking outside.

You should look straight at a film; that's the only way to see one. Film is not the art of scholars but of illiterates.