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.”

Wim Wenders

“Any movie that has that spirit and says things can be changed is worth making. ”

Samuel Fuller

“Movement should be a counter, whether in action scenes or dialogue or whatever. It counters where your eye is going. This style thing, for me it's all fitted to the action, to the script, to the characters.”

Chantal Akerman

“When people ask me if I am a feminist film maker, I reply I am a woman and I also make films.”

Monte Hellman

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

Yasujirô Ozu

“I formulated my own directing style in my own head, proceeding without any unnecessary imitation of others… For me there was no such thing as a teacher. I have relied entirely on my own strength.”

Satyajit Ray

“What is attempted in these films is of course a synthesis. But it can be seen by someone who has his feet in both cultures. Someone who will bring to bear on the films involvement and detachment in equal measure.”

Anthony Mann

"Primarily known for his Westerns, Mann portrayed a world of violence against some of the most striking natural vistas in cinema history. His crime films are gritty and real, and all his work reflects an exploration of the complex psychology of the human soul." —William R. Meyer (The Film Buff's Catalog, 1978)

Alain Resnais

“I'm always in search of special nonrealistic language that has musicality. ”

Kelly Reichardt

“I like working in a really private way. I mean, we got as far as a cut of [Old Joy] without speaking to any kind of lawyer or anything. We got into Sundance before we thought we should form a company. Aside from a lot of sound work and stuff still to go, it was all very private, and that’s a dream for me.”

Michelangelo Antonioni

“Hollywood is like being nowhere and talking to nobody about nothing.”

Rainer Werner Fassbinder

“It isn't easy to accept that suffering can also be beautiful...it's difficult. It's something you can only understand if you dig deeply into yourself.”

Theodoros Angelopoulos

“Prizes are prizes, but I still need to tell that story. And being simple is the hardest thing.”

Robert Bresson

“Make visible what, without you, might perhaps never have been seen.”

Jules Dassin

“If there is anything I want to be remembered for, it is for fulfilling Melina's dream [the return of the Elgin Marbles to Greece].”

Gillo Pontecorvo

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.”

Dušan Makavejev

“You just see so many movies that at some point it becomes part of your life...Movies always follow us as reference material or as some kind of dreamlike material for dealing with things we don't understand in our lives. Movies give us solutions, or provide a whispering commentary on what is happening around us.”

Masaki Kobayashi

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

Todd Haynes

“I've always felt more politically comfortable making films that demonstrated problems and didn't tell you how to solve them, but made you feel enough for the subjects who were hurt by these problems...”