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.

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

I think Irish people started to move to the United States - many things that were of consequence. And it was a tiny and mild event compared to what had happened 74,000 years ago.

I travel without barely any luggage. Just a second set of underwear and binoculars and a map and a toothbrush.

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.

If you don't read, you will never be a filmmaker.

We haven't seen a real volcanic event at least in 74,000 years - [Mount Toba] in Indonesia, in Sumatra, where the crater itself is 100 kilometers across. It was so monumental, what happened, that for a very long time the entire atmosphere of our planet was darkened. It's not the lava and the heat per se; it's the obscuring of the entire atmosphere, and it made it very difficult for the human race to survive.