Maren Ade

“To date, I have always started with a character whose inner life I investigated for some time. I am then able to extract a narrative from his or her desires, longings and fears. While still searching, I am tuned into the world around me, enjoy observing people, let myself be led by what I meet in the way of stories, people – and films, of course.”

Christoph Schlingensief

Miloš Forman

“The worst evil is - and that's the product of censorship - is the self-censorship, because that twists spines, that destroys my character because I have to think something else and say something else, I have to always control myself.”

Piotr Dumala

David Fincher

“I don't know how much movies should entertain. To me I'm always interested in movies that scar. The thing I love about JAWS is that I've never gone swimming in the ocean again.”

Nicolas Winding Refn

“Art is an act of violence.”

Mark Romanek

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.”

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.”

Tsai Ming-liang

“The body always plays an important role in my films. You could say the body is the most beautiful thing we have or you could say it’s the ugliest thing we have. We can sell bodies, we can adore or worship bodies.”

Jan Kounen

“In France, a director has the final cut by law. In Hollywood it is very difficult to have a certain respect when you are doing the film. I prefer to do small things in Europe and have a cool life.”

Alain Corneau

“I was lucky to be able to bring to fruition unlikely projects that were close to my heart like ‘Nocturne Indien’ or ‘Tous Les Matins Du Monde’, which fulfilled my wish to make a film about Baroque music, some of my other films could have been better, but I avoid watching them.”

François Ozon

“I think cinema has to deal with desire. In the cinema, you are with a big screen, it is dark, and you watch some images, like a fantasy, so I think it is important for you to feel desire for what you see.”

Harmony Korine

“What I remember myself from films, and what I love about films, is specific scenes and characters.”

Christopher Nolan

“I think audiences get too comfortable and familiar in today's movies. They believe everything they're hearing and seeing. I like to shake that up.”

Paul Thomas Anderson

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

Jacques Tati

“Like a dancer learns to dance ... a visual comic learns to use his legs.”

Kim Ki-duk

“I always ask myself one question: what is human? What does it mean to be human? Maybe people will consider my new films brutal again. But this violence is just a reflection of what they really are, of what is in each one of us to certain degree.”

Vincent Gallo

“I constantly try to reinvent my sensibilities and my ideas. I enjoy some of the satisfaction that I get when I feel good about what I've done. But the process is quite lonely and quite painful.”

Vittorio De Sica

“I've lost all my money on these films. They are not commercial. But I'm glad to lose it this way. To have for a souvenir of my life pictures like Umberto D. and The Bicycle Thief.”