Agnès Varda

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

Jason Reitman

“I don't want to make films that give you the answer. If there is a message to my films - and I hope there isn't - it's to be open-minded.”

John Cassavetes

“The most difficult thing in the world is to reveal yourself, to express what you have to. As an artist, I feel that we must try many things - but above all we must dare to fail. You must be willing to risk everything to really express it all.”

Carl Theodor Dreyer

“Nothing in the world can be compared to the human face. There is no greater experience in a studio than to witness the expression of a sensitive face under the mysterious power of inspiration. To see it animated from inside, and turning into poetry.”

Carlos Reygadas

“Theatre is interesting as a catharsis for actors because it's the only way you can be idiotic and get away with it. I really, really don't like theatre and I feel so far from it.”

Dennis Hopper

“Like all artists I want to cheat death a little and contribute something to the next generation.”

Abbas Kiarostami

“But in all, I don't like to engage in telling stories. I don't like to arouse the viewer emotionally or give him advice. I don't like to belittle him or burden him with a sense of guilt. These are the things I don't like in the movies.”

Werner Herzog

“It is my duty to direct because the films might be the inner chronicle of what we are, and we have to articulate ourselves. Otherwise we would be cows in the field.”

Fernando Eimbcke

Alfred Hitchcock

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

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.”

Claudia Llosa

David Lynch

“I don't think about technique. The ideas dictate everything. You have to be true to that or you're dead.”

Stan Brakhage

“There are a lot of movies made for nobody.”

Michel Gondry

“Every great idea is on the verge of being stupid.”

Federico Fellini

“What is an artist? A provincial who finds himself somewhere between a physical reality and a metaphysical one...”

Billy Wilder

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

Don Hertzfeldt

“Some people can do great things with CG, but that world just doesn’t interest me or inspire me. I’ve never felt really creative or intuitive using software. I like paper and pens and paint. I need to angle real lights on my artwork and work with my hands and build props. Computers just take all that fun out of it.”

Richard Linklater

“I've always liked the minds of criminals, they seem similar to artists. ”

Ingmar Bergman

“Film as dream, film as music. No art passes our conscience in the way film does, and goes directly to our feelings, deep down into the dark rooms of our souls.”