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.”

Andrea Arnold

“Dramatically, I like darkness, I like conflict - but I don't see the world as defined by them. And why would I pretend to? That's not who I am.”

Marcel Carné

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

David Cronenberg

“Anybody who comes to the cinema is bringing their whole sexual history, their literary history, their movie literacy, their culture, their language, their religion, whatever they've got. I can't possibly manipulate all of that, nor do I want to.”

Laurent Cantet

“I don't set out to make a film as a metaphor. People can read into it what they like, afterwards. The concept is embodied by the story, by the characters, by the context.”

Tony Richardson

“It’s no exaggeration to say that the ‘sequence’ group changed the whole way of feeling and thinking about film in England – at any rate for a few inspiring years, before the British sank once again into complacency and philistinism.”

Thomas McCarthy

Bill Douglas

“I was always somewhat obsessed with my past.”

Lynne Ramsay

“I've found that film-making's not just a job, it becomes part of your whole life.”

Yuri Ilyenko

Markku Pölönen

Céline Sciamma

Pavel Jurácek

Adam Yauch

“If people like what you do, they say they like what you're doin'. And if they don't like it, maybe they don't tell you.”

Anne-Marie Miéville

David Lynch

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

Pablo Larraín

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.”

Chris Columbus

“I can understand the validity of showing people the ugliness of the world, but I also think there is a place for movies to leave people with a sense of hope. If your film isn't going to do that, I just don't think it's worth making.”

Julien Temple

“I'm just trying to find another way of doing it. Treat each time as though you know nothing about the form.”