Mani Kaul

“I made films because I wanted to make films. I didn’t do it with the intention of giving the audience a message. The act of making a film is a social act.”

Govindan Aravindan

“No work of art directly or indirectly changes society or human beings. However, cinema has the power to influence the human mind.”

Dan Piţa

Piotr Dumala

Mikio Naruse

“From the youngest age, I have thought that the world we live in betrays us; this thought still remains with me.”

Akira Kurosawa

“Movie directors, or should I say people who create things, are very greedy and they can never be satisfied...that's why they can keep on working. I've been able to work for so long because I think next time, I'll make something good.”

Terrence Malick

“[On Badlands (1973)] I tried to keep the 1950s to a bare minimum. Nostalgia is a powerful feeling; it can drown out anything. I wanted the picture to set up like a fairy tale, outside time, like Treasure Island. I hoped this would, among other things, take a little of the sharpness out of the violence, but still keep its dreamy quality.”

Jorge Sanjinés

“We live a true social, collective insurrection. A historical phenomenon without precedent in the world, and which thus has a significant importance.”

Fritz Lang

“I should say that I was a visual person. I experience with my eyes and never, or rarely, with my ears...to my constant regret.”

João César Monteiro

“I will be dust, but dust in love.”

Yoshishige Yoshida

“I don’t think it’s possible to have an abstract idea of a man and an abstract idea of a woman and put those two characters in a story.”

Binka Zhelyazkova

Charlie Chaplin

“Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot.”

Semih Kaplanoğlu

Ritwik Ghatak

“Why films? Because I am totally crazy. I can’t live without making films. I look at the struggle and misery of contemporary life. And try to say something to the best of my ability.”

Santiago Álvarez

Lester James Peries

“I feel that the cinema has done much more for me than I have done for the Sri Lankan cinema. It played a role in bringing me back home and to my roots, and helped me get closer to the Sri Lankan people. I owe the cinema a lot. Sometimes I wonder whether I`ve been specially favoured.”

Shôhei Imamura

“I show true things using fictional techniques but maintaining truthfulness — that's where my approach differs from Ozu. He wanted to make film more aesthetic. I want to make it more real. He aspired toward a cinematic nirvana. When I was his assistant, I was very opposed to him, but now, whilst still not liking his films, I'm much more tolerant. As for me, I'd like to destroy this premise that cinema is fiction.”

Dziga Vertov

“I am eye. I am a mechanical eye. I, a machine, am showing you a world, the likes of which only I can see.”

Đặng Nhật Minh

“I have no regrets at all about being a film director as it is destiny. But if I could choose again, I would rather be a doctor and follow in my father’s footsteps.”