Éric Rohmer

“I do not say, I show. I show people who move and speak.”

Marcel Carné

“I don't know what they'll say when I die. I don't give a damn, but they'll probably cry.”

Alejandro Amenábar

“I wouldn't say I'm a very controlling person. For instance, when I talk to the actors, I don't tell them exactly what I want because I want them to surprise me. I even encourage them to change some of the verses of the script if they need to.”

Orson Welles

“A film is never really good unless the camera is an eye in the head of a poet.”

Piotr Dumala

“Animation has traditionally used conventional figures, looking like Bolek and Lolek - flat men without shadows or space. And when someone starts - like I do - to use shadows (all of my 'drawn' lights and shadows were underlined with real lights or shadows), he is said to copy feature films. ... People generally think that animation is either flat kid cartoons or esoteric avant-garde. The truth is that animation does not copy 'the real cinema'. It is 'the real cinema'.”

Andrzej Wajda

“When a film is created, it is created in a language, which is not only about words, but also the way that very language encodes our perception of the world, our understanding of it.”

Héctor Babenco

“I don't really believe that I am a political movie director. My strongest impulse has always been to flee from definitions, flags and ideologies.”

David Lean

“My distinguishing talent is the ability to put people under the microscope, perhaps to go one or two layers farther down than some other directors.”

Jovan Jovanović

Wojciech Has

“If Wojciech Has had become a painter, he would surely have been a Surrealist” [Aleksander Jackiewicz]

D.W. Griffith

“A film without a message is just a waste of time.”

Michel Gondry

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

Anthony Minghella

“I had never thought of myself as a director and found out that I was not. I am a writer who was able to direct the films that I write.”

Alejandro Jodorowsky

“Most directors make films with their eyes; I make films with my testicles.”

Aleksandr Kaydanovskiy

Warren Beatty

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

Živko Nikolić

Jean-Luc Godard

“A story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end... but not necessarily in that order. ”

Philip Kaufman

“To me, thoughts are fun and art is fun. The strength of our society should not be idle entertainments but the joy of pursuing ideas.”

Charlie Chaplin

“Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot.”