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.”

Clive Holden

“We are bruised and pragmatic, but we are in fact still utopian.”

Michael Haneke

“Every film is manipulative, raping the viewer. So the question is: Why do I rape the viewer?”

Frederick Wiseman

“There are lots of different ways to make film. I don’t believe there has to be any orthodox way to making movies, or any rules. It’s what works for the filmmaker, and, theoretically, the audience.”

Michael Winterbottom

“Each scene should feel right, should be true at that moment, and gradually you accumulate these moments of truth until you get enough of them together that it becomes a story that’s interesting.”

Peter Watkins

“I think that the main impact on my work, on the making of this film, came from the intensity of the similarity I felt to Edvard Munch as a man, as an artist, as someone who struggled throughout his life.”

David Lynch

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

Jim Jarmusch

“I always start with characters rather than with a plot, which many critics would say is very obvious from the lack of plot in my films - although I think they do have plots - but the plot is not of primary importance to me, the characters are. ”

Hal Hartley

“Despite the fact that I love story, character and dialogue, when I isolate the primary elements of film I find photography, movement and sound recording — in that order. Only then do I consider dramatic action. Film is essentially graphic for me.”

Jean-Luc Godard

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

Joel Coen

“The characters are the result of two things-first, we elaborate them into fairly well-defined people through their dialogue, then they happen all over again, when the actor interprets them. ”

Ethan Coen

“We create monsters and then we can't control them. ”

Paul Thomas Anderson

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

Christopher Morris

“If a terrorist organization wanted to knock out the moral compass of Britain, all they’d have to do is to kill 100 celebrities at random. The entire country would have an instant nervous breakdown.”

Armando Iannucci

Errol Morris

“The proper route to an understanding of the world is an examination of our errors about it.”

David Maysles

“The most exciting thing in life is to watch the meeting of two strangers.”

Albert Maysles

“Documentary can requote reality I think more honestly and authentically, when done properly, than any other medium. If it is practiced properly, then it is more like photography than cinematography.”