Masaki Kobayashi

“In any era, I am critical of authoritarian power.”

Kihachi Okamoto

Gillian Armstrong

“I think it's actually very tough out there for Australian films. If you think of the Australian film awards, say, 15 years ago, we were voting for... you know, we'd see 24, 25 major feature films that we'd be voting for best picture. I think now it's something more like eight.”

Kathryn Bigelow

“I've spent a fair amount of time thinking about what my aptitude is, and I really think it's to explore and push the medium. It's not about breaking gender roles or genre traditions.”

Lucrecia Martel

“From the very beginning, even when I’m writing, I think a lot about the sound. Many elements of my work in cinema come from oral storytelling and oral tradition. I think about sound and the rhythm of the sound.”

Catherine Breillat

“When I shoot a film, I always project myself into one of the characters, at once into either a man or a woman...”

Ida Lupino

“I'd love to see more women working as directors and producers. Today it's almost impossible to do it unless you are an actress or writer with power...I wouldn't hesitate right this minute to hire a talented woman if the subject matter were right.”

Agnès Varda

“I'm not interested in seeing a film just made by a woman - not unless she is looking for new images.”

John Farrow

Henri-Georges Clouzot

“I want only to tell a story. I think movies are entertainment. If at the same time you can get across something you feel, that is perfect.”

Tod Browning

“The thing you have to be most careful of in a mystery story, is not to let it verge on the comic. If a thing gets too gruesome and too horrible, it gets beyond the limits of the average imagination and the audience laughs. It may sound incongruous, but mystery must be made plausible.”

James Whale

“Hollywood is just too marvelous. One feels the footprints of all the immortals are here, but has a terrible feeling that they are in sand and won’t last when civilization comes this way.”

Budd Boetticher

“The Western formula: A man has a job to do, or a couple of men. They try to do it against tremendous odds. They do it.”

John Ford

“I hate the cinema. But I like making westerns.”

John Carpenter

“In France, I'm an auteur; in Germany, a filmmaker; in Britain, a genre film director; and, in the USA, a bum.”

Buster Keaton

“I don't act anyway. The stuff is all injected as we go along. My pictures are made without script or written directions of any kind.”

Billy Wilder

“If you're going to tell people the truth, be funny or they'll kill you.”

Frank Borzage

“Make the audience sentimental instead of the player. Make the audience act.”

Mario Bava

“In a horror film, lighting is 70% of the effectiveness. It’s essential in creation the atmosphere.”

Luchino Visconti

“I took a round trip around Hollywood because I think it frightened me. I didn’t want to get burned in that glare.”