John Boorman

“I have sought that lost grace in the film-making process, where the material things of the world – money, buildings, sets, plastic, metal, people – disappear into a camera and become nothing but light and shadow flickering on a wall: matter into spirit, the alchemists would say.”

Hal Hartley

“Despite the fact that I love story, character and dialogue, when I isolate the primary elements of film I find photography, movement and sound recording — in that order. Only then do I consider dramatic action. Film is essentially graphic for me.”

Mark Christopher

John Landis

“Directors, like actors, get typecast.”

Lucky McKee

“At some point or another we realize that we’ll be alone for our entire lives. Alone in our minds. No one else can get inside there and truly see what’s going on.”

Ti West

“The independent world and the studio world are very different. The independent world is about, "Let's get this movie made because it's going to be awesome and we believe in it," and the studio world is about slow business decisions.”

Dover Koshashvili

Frank Tashlin

“I got into a fight with Walt Disney: I always pick the wrong people to fight with.”

Marco Bellocchio

“For me a film grows from an image.”

Monte Hellman

“I've been in love with the movies as long as I can remember.”

Todd Solondz

“Some people will of course accuse me of misanthropy and cynicism. I can’t celebrate humanity but I’m not out to indict it either. I just want to expose certain truths.”

Denis Villeneuve

Béla Tarr

“I think censorship is always there. Then it was the censorship of the state and now it's the censorship of the market.”

Whit Stillman

“For me, the present is a golden era that’s ending too. That’s the greatest golden era. Right now. [Laughs.] I just like pining for lost times. I can pine for this morning.”

Jonathan Glazer

Miranda July

“As a filmmaker, the last thing you want to do is place kids in emotional or physical jeopardy. Especially for me, coming from a place of really loving those kids.”

Giorgos Lanthimos

Ridley Scott

“People say I pay too much attention to the look of a movie but for God's sake, I'm not producing a Radio 4 Play for Today, I'm making a movie that people are going to look at. ”

Shunji Iwai

“I like analogue things more than plastic things. But as for picture quality, 35 mm is just half the size it can be, which is an issue for me.”

Alan Rudolph

“I'm me, I live from film to mouth.”