IRA SACHS

Secrets make for good drama, and revealing the hidden truths and contradictions of life is, for me, one of the most exciting aspects of making movies.

Without community events like NewFest, I don't think we'd have a queer cinema in America.

One of the biggest things that happens to many people when they have kids is that you suddenly realize that you're not going to last forever. You know there is another generation who are the heroes of their own stories, and that is humbling.

I don't rehearse with my actors... the first rehearsal is the first time we turn the camera on... Sydney Pollack never rehearsed his actors, and I found out that's allowed... so you film reactions; you don't create them.

I've been hiding crucial events in my life since I was 13.

It's easy to make a film, but it's hard to make a career of being a filmmaker.

A lot of what I think I do as a director is try to give everything over to the actor. So I disappear.

There's a lot of things lost in the Digital Age.

I always hope that people feel less alone when they see a movie that I make. That some part of the story played out on the big screen will resonate for individuals in the audience in a way that gives them comfort.

Everyone wants to belong, and everyone needs to belong in order to make a career on some level.

Capturing intimacy is pretty much the only thing I'm interested in. That's what excites me and what I find beautiful in movies personally - that almost obscene sense that we shouldn't be this close to these people. I find that very inviting and meaningful as an audience member.

I think there's a fear of difference in American cinema.

Everything encourages you not to tell stories of gay lives. There is no economy yet for that kind of cinema.

My father moved out to Park City in in the mid-'70s and lived in a Winnebago behind a hippie joint called Utah Coal & Lumber that was one of only two or three restaurants at that time. Park City was a sleepy little mining town, with not a condo in sight.

Being an artist is in part an act of rupture.

You can only begin to share life well when you think well of yourself.

I remember being a teenager and seeing Seymour Cassel across a crowded room and being incredibly star struck, and not having the courage to say, 'Hello.'

Working on the Obama campaign was a life-changer for me. I realized during that campaign that structure is the name of the game, and so, soon after the election, filmmaker Adam Baran and I started Queer/Art/Film, a monthly series at the IFC Film Center in downtown New York that invites queer artists to present the films they love to an audience.

You can be aware of the passing of time without being nostalgic.

I don't think I'd ever start making a film until I had both the intimacy with the subject and the distance to make it live in a certain way.

By 15, I was lucky enough to find the theater.

I came to N.Y.C. in 1988 and got very involved with Act Up. I also started making movies, including two very gay shorts, 'Vaudeville' and 'Lady.' It was the height of the AIDS epidemic, and New York City was both dying and very alive at the same time.

I've been close to two or three couples, gay and straight, who have been together for 45 years.

Most simply but profoundly, I chose to live an honest life, which I think as a gay person is not a given.

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