For example, the face of Nicole Kidman in Queen of the Desert and she is the most beautiful goddess on screen that you can find anywhere around in the world. There's no imperfections, and yet I don't need to know every single pore in her face.

We live in an era when established values are no longer valid, when prodigious discoveries are being made every year, when catastrophes of unbelievable proportions occur weekly. In ancient Greek the word “chaos” means “gaping void” or “yawning emptiness.” The most effective response to the chaos in our lives is the creation of new forms of literature, music, poetry, art and cinema.

Well, it had to be about the stories and the people who live under the volcano, what kind of new gods do they create? What sort of demons? And of course North Korea falls clearly into this category since the socialist revolution at the end of the Second World War. Somehow they adopted the myth of the power and dynamics of their volcano.

We were very, very lucky [with Tim White filmed making historic discoveries in the East African Rift ] . In 100 years, only three skeletal remains [of early man] were ever found at this site. This was the third one, and we were right there when it happened. In fact, when I first heard they had found something, I said, "Please stop it! Don't do anything right now. Let's do it tomorrow until we have unpacked our cameras and assembled our stuff.

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.

ِِِِِِِِِِArt house theaters are vanishing. They have almost disappeared completely, and that means there's a shift in what audiences want to see. And they have to be aware of that and be realistic. It's as simple as that.

I was able to persuade them to let me shoot in areas that were beyond the volcano itself. Beyond the joint scientific program between Cambridge University and North Korean scientists. I was able to film in a kindergarten, subway, other things you would not normally be allowed to do.