Entertainment today constantly emphasises the message that things are wonderful the way they are. But there is another kind of cinema, which says that change is possible and necessary and it's up to you.

Don't worry about getting final cut, worry about making the best possible cut.

In the late 1980s the amount of German films was down to four or five percent of the market, and the remaining 95 percent were American. It is now 20 to 30 percent German productions.

I sometimes feel fiction is the ideal preservation for real memories. Fiction is such a good place to keep things.

Before you say cut, wait 5 seconds

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

If anything, I see myself as a witness. I'd also be pleased, if you'd call me an interpreter. I try to hear and see the message of a place and pass it on, into that other language, the universal one of images.