Abdellatif Kechiche

“My films are more for cinéastes than the public at large. They are not blockbusters, and the awards I get are given out by people in the profession. For a director, what counts is to have as many people see my film as possible. It’s okay, because I have a certain audience, but on the other hand, this is, as I said before, not a blockbuster, it’s not going to be attracting hordes of people.”

Edgar Reitz

“In my film work it is always important to have a completely authentic way of describing people’s situations. I use people’s own personal experience, their surroundings and the way they lived.”

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.”

Michael Haneke

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

Krzysztof Kieślowski

“Maybe it is worth investigating the unknown, if only because the very feeling of not knowing is a painful one.”

Matteo Garrone

“I’d obviously like to find my own way and not be considered an imitator. Some have claimed my style is a new neorealism. But neorealism is of course a style that is connected to an earlier period of Italian cinema. I do owe a great debt to those directors — to Rossellini and many others.”

Mike Leigh

“The whole thing about making films in an organic film location is that it's not all about characters, relationships and themes, it's also about place and the poetry of place. It's about the spirit of what you find, the accidents of what you stumble across”

Luc Dardenne

“Of course, we always hope our films will speak to people, disturb them, but we never hoped to change the world”

Jean-Pierre Dardenne

“The truth is always less interesting than the fiction.”

Jean-Pierre Melville

“I believe that you must be madly in love with cinema to create films. You also need a huge cinematic baggage.”

Pier Paolo Pasolini

“The mark which has dominated all my work is this longing for life, this sense of exclusion, which doesn't lessen but augments this love of life.”

Gus Van Sant

“I have my ideas of what a good documentary is, but drama is a different animal because you're arranging everything.”

Hayao Miyazaki

“Modern life is so thin and shallow and fake. I look forward to when developers go bankrupt, Japan gets poorer and wild grasses take over.”

Isao Takahata

“Try to remember one thing, which counts the most: it is not the real, nor even the relationship with the real; it is only the line and the way of drawing.”

Roberto Rossellini

“I am not a pessimist; to perceive evil where it exists is, in my opinion, a form of optimism.”

Billy Wilder

“If you're going to tell people the truth, be funny or they'll kill you.”

James Gray

“What I’m after, making a film, is the most exact transcript of my most intimate impressions of behavior.”

Nanni Moretti

“Who doesn't speak well doesn't think well and doesn't live well! It's necessary to find the right words: words are important! ”

Amir Naderi

“When I’m filming, I’m just focused on what I want to do. I shut out everything else in the world and just focus on that. And I made the people working with me do that as well. No cell phones, no life, no nothing.”

Jean-Daniel Pollet