In Germany, you would be hanged if you cracked a joke about Hitler and you would be killed by the state if you were insane in a project of euthanasia.

This climate surrounding me has reached Clive Oppenheimer. In practical terms he sees that I'm not interested in any sort of daredevil stunts, I'm just interested in the work. And he's convinced that I'm clinically sane.

Netflix knew I was going to North Korea and Ethiopia and Iceland. They saw the film and liked it and that was that.

I'm trying to find these rare moments where you feel completely illuminated. Facts never illuminate you. The phone directory of Manhattan doesn't illuminate you, although it has factually correct entries, millions of them. But these rare moments of illumination that you find when you read a great poem, you instantly know. You instantly feel this spark of illumination. You are almost stepping outside of yourself and you see something sublime.

I have learned a lot through defeats, and, until today, it's - I'm still haunted by defeats, and they do happen. Sometimes, a film of mine is rejected. And how do you deal with it? And you have to learn how to deal with it and survive anyway.

There is a fascination about crime, which is understandable, but hardly anyone talks about the families of victims of violent crime and the devastation that is beyond the victim alone.

What I do not like, the kind of high-resolution cameras, 4K, 6K, for shooting dialogue, for having faces and close-ups of actors, and you see every single pore in the skin.