Katsuhiro Ôtomo

“As I originally developed [AKIRA], I used each issue to build more depth and size into this mammoth city [Neo-Tokyo]. I kept trying to achieve this by creating a variety of situations to stage the graphic storytelling. But with film you get to combine all this into one and I think that it is much more convincing on film than in a serialised comic strip.”

Paul Thomas Anderson

“I'll rebel against powers and principalities, all the time. Always, I will.”

Bong Joon-ho

“Human beings basically express their feelings in the same way. They feel the same feelings. If you look at two foreigners talking to each other, you soon can see if they are fighting, or are in love.”

Zhang Yimou

“To do art, one thing should always remember - subjects of people in misery have deep meanings.”

Terrence Malick

“[On Badlands (1973)] I tried to keep the 1950s to a bare minimum. Nostalgia is a powerful feeling; it can drown out anything. I wanted the picture to set up like a fairy tale, outside time, like Treasure Island. I hoped this would, among other things, take a little of the sharpness out of the violence, but still keep its dreamy quality.”

Wong Kar-wai

“Sometimes they think the way we work is very stylish and romantic, but actually it's the way we can survive and make the films. We can work with the things that we get, but not the things we wish we had.”

Alejandro Agresti

Wes Anderson

“I know that feeling of looking back and thinking, that part I'd like to fix. So I obsessively try not to compromise.”

Akira Kurosawa

“Movie directors, or should I say people who create things, are very greedy and they can never be satisfied...that's why they can keep on working. I've been able to work for so long because I think next time, I'll make something good.”

Mike Nichols

“Nerves provide me with energy...It's when I don't have them, when I feel at ease, that I get worried.”

Woody Allen

“Comedy just pokes at problems, rarely confronts them squarely. Drama is like a plate of meat and potatoes, comedy is rather the dessert, a bit like meringue.”

Alfred Hitchcock

“For me, the cinema is not a slice of life, but a piece of cake.”

Hayao Miyazaki

“Modern life is so thin and shallow and fake. I look forward to when developers go bankrupt, Japan gets poorer and wild grasses take over.”