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.”

William Klein

“The kinetic quality of New York, the kids, dirt, madness—I tried to find a photographic style that would come close to it.”

Peggy Ahwesh

Stan Brakhage

“There are a lot of movies made for nobody.”

Adam Wingard

Ken Jacobs

“In real life, there’s no stories. Everything is unending, confusing. Nothing starts and concludes. There’s no beginning, middle and end in the actual experience of our lives, and we want this kind of neat little package, and we make them for ourselves in our stories.”

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.”

Michael Powell

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

Scott B.

Beth B.

Maya Deren

“The task of cinema or any other art form is not to translate hidden messages of the unconscious soul into art but to experiment with the effects contemporary technical devices have on nerves, minds, or souls.”

Louis Malle

“You must find the note, the correct key, for your story. If you find it, everything will work. If you do not, everything will stick out like elbows.”

Alain Resnais

“I'm always in search of special nonrealistic language that has musicality. ”

Mikhail Kalatozov

Ronald Bronstein

Cristian Mungiu

“I believe in the joy of little things. I enjoy walking and observing things, noticing details about people and the space I'm in. We live in the movie of our own life and we seldom pay attention to it. ”

Ursula Meier

Claire Denis

“Even if it's the dream of a voyage, I think it was very important for me that the film offer the two sides of the globe.”

Roy Andersson

“I felt that film-making generally didn't reach the level you could find in painting or literature or music. It was for one-time use only, and more and more, the movies were losing their visual power - they were concentrating on the plot only. That's why I started wanting to be a film director myself. It wasn't only the plot that was interesting; it was the touch, the feeling, something visually rich.”

Luis Buñuel

“I distrust reason and culture. In our thoughts there are images that appear suddenly, without us pondering them. In all my films, even the most conventional ones, is the tendency to irrational conduct that can not be explained logically.”