It's very hard to find critics or a magazine today that will publish material that is genuinely independent and written without any concern about being cut off some distributor's list or not be invited or flown into screenings.

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

The most important question for me when I begin working on a film is where to start. For a book, what makes you convinced there is a story that is worthwhile?

Filmmaking is really connected to life and all of the expressions that different arts found to allow access to life. Filmmaking touches on all of it.

It's almost scary how stylish things can look if you take the color out - how much more you see the essence of things and how much more something can appear elegant.

If you travel a lot, if you like roaming about in order to lose yourself, you can end up in the strangest places. I think it must be a kind of built-in radar, which often takes me to places that are either peculiarly quiet or peculiar in a quiet sort of way.

But I think that the spirit of protectionism would be the grave of European cinema. You cannot protect something by building a fence around it and thinking that this will help it survive.