Roberto Rossellini

“I am not a pessimist; to perceive evil where it exists is, in my opinion, a form of optimism.”

Michelangelo Antonioni

“Hollywood is like being nowhere and talking to nobody about nothing.”

Vittorio De Sica

“I've lost all my money on these films. They are not commercial. But I'm glad to lose it this way. To have for a souvenir of my life pictures like Umberto D. and The Bicycle Thief.”

Walter Salles

“The necessity to conceptualize has to come very early on, and defining a vector of development for that film also at the beginning of the process will allow you much more freedom as you go along.”

Nuri Bilge Ceylan

“In my films the landscapes connect the characters to a sense of something cosmic. I try to recapture those moments in life where you suddenly feel that connection to a wider universe.”

Michael Moore

“White people scare the crap out of me. ”

Tim Robbins

“Any time you're trying to do a movie with a happy ending, it's very difficult because it's been done before and you don't want to be manipulative.”

Costa-Gavras

“My mother used to say ‘stay away from politics’, because my father went to prison. But if you reject politics, you reject a lot of relationships. The worst thing in society is individualism.”

Laurence Olivier

“Living is strife and torment, disappointment and love and sacrifice, golden sunsets and black storms. I said that some time ago, and today I do not think I would add one word.”

Gillo Pontecorvo

Paul Greengrass

Jim Sheridan

“I've seen thousands of films where people are brought down, where it's "life is terrible and we all agree" and the critical audience is over here for that, and the general public is over here. And it seems that cinema has gone out, or life, has gone out a kilter.”

Louis Malle

“You must find the note, the correct key, for your story. If you find it, everything will work. If you do not, everything will stick out like elbows.”

Warren Beatty

“Movies are fun, but they’re not a cure for cancer.”

Krzysztof Kieślowski

“Maybe it is worth investigating the unknown, if only because the very feeling of not knowing is a painful one.”

Satyajit Ray

“What is attempted in these films is of course a synthesis. But it can be seen by someone who has his feet in both cultures. Someone who will bring to bear on the films involvement and detachment in equal measure.”

Stephen Frears

“When you’re starting, what you chiefly have is energy and passion and that will go a long way to cover a certain amount of funkiness in how you tell a story. But you’re never going to make a film late in your career the way you made it at the beginning and to try to is insane.”

Martin Scorsese

“Cinema is a matter of what's in the frame and what's out.”

Ken Loach

“A movie isn't a political movement, a party or even an article. It's just a film. At best it can add its voice to public outrage.”

Luc Dardenne

“Of course, we always hope our films will speak to people, disturb them, but we never hoped to change the world”