Jean Vigo

[on his film, Nizza] “In this film, by showing certain basic aspects of a city, a way of life is put on trial. The last gasps of a society so lost in its escapism that it sickens you and makes you sympathetic to a revolutionary solution.”

Kazuya Tsurumaki

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. ”

Yasujirô Ozu

“I formulated my own directing style in my own head, proceeding without any unnecessary imitation of others… For me there was no such thing as a teacher. I have relied entirely on my own strength.”

René Laloux

“What suggests, is superior to what shows. Movies today show more and more. It’s paranoid dictator cinema.”

Georges Méliès

“We sat with our mouths open, without speaking, filled with amazement.”

François Truffaut

“I have always preferred the reflection of the life to life itself.”

Jack Cardiff

“I was not a technical person - I was never a technical person. I have always liked the more artistic side of things and I did get a lot of inspiration and knowledge from studying painting - that was very important.”

Michael Powell

“I’m not a director with a personal style, I am simply cinema. I have grown up with and through the cinema...”

Jean-Pierre Melville

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

Guillermo del Toro

“I like actors that are good with pantomime and that can transmit a lot by their presence and attitude more than through their dialogue.”

Luis Buñuel

“If someone were to tell me I had twenty years left, and ask me how I'd like to spend them, I'd reply 'Give me two hours a day of activity, and I'll take the other twenty-two in dreams.'”

Nobuhiko Obayashi

Noriaki Yuasa

Jean-Luc Godard

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

Louis C.K.

“Every day starts, my eyes open and I reload the program of misery. I open my eyes remember who I am, what I'm like, and I just go "ugh...."”

Dennis Hopper

“Like all artists I want to cheat death a little and contribute something to the next generation.”

Ray Harryhausen

“People ask me if I would have used computer graphics today. I may have, I don’t know. There’s a lot of technology now that allows you to view instantly the film you’ve just shot. But I never cared what I had done, I only cared where I was going.”

Jacques Tati

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

Steve McQueen

“My influences come from real life. I’m not interested in cinema for cinema’s sake. I’m interested in life—what one does and how one interacts.”