Photographs put time into such a perspective. They humble us and our selfish memories.

Movies are something people see all over the world because there is a certain need for it.

I think seeing happens partly through the eyes, but not entirely.

For years all I seemed to be doing was lobbying politicians and others to persuade them that European culture needed movies, and that we had to protect it.

Take opera for example - to go to the opera you have to dress up in a tuxedo and pay lots of money.

In fact, it is amazing how much European films - Italian, French, German and English - have recovered a certain territory of the audience in their countries over the last few years.

The culture of independent film criticism has totally gone down the drain and this seems to come with the territory of the consumer age that we are now living in.