Anubhav Sinha Quotes

My goal is to make as many films as possible about different aspects of American life.

I think that our task as filmmakers is to create the most insightful reality given the most pressing questions.

I want to be able to bring out stories like 'Verna,' as well as stories which are of the modern and new generation like 'Ho Mann Jahaan,' which is a film I did of the youth of Pakistan.

It's so funny when you're actually directing because things start popping that you don't expect to pop, and something that you think is going to pop, maybe doesn't quite have the impetus that you thought it might.

I think the documentary is something that people are hungry for, that it embodies careful thought, nuance.

I'm not naive enough to pretend that on its own cinema can capture the very soul of significant social and cultural problems.

I want to make movies about my country from my point of view.

I never understood the realism of an imaginary circumstance. While I was doing 'Smoke Signals,' I relied on my instinct and what I grew up with. I had this energy, but it was a one-dimensional thing.

I don't like directing that much to want a career as a director for hire. I like to have as much creative control as possible.

To make personal movies that you are the author of, is quite a difficult thing. It takes a lot of stamina.

When you boil it down, most movies are message movies. And I think careers are made in message movies.

When I was working my way up, it seemed to me that only Westerns and 'Star Treks' or sci-fi movies could afford to get away with presenting the problems - like prejudice and desegregation, for instance - that we face in our everyday lives.

I feel like directing is an innate talent.

I make my films because I'm affected by a situation, by something that makes me want to reflect on it, that lends itself to an artistic reflection. I always aim to look directly at what I'm dealing with. I think it's a task of dramatic art to confront us with things that in the entertainment industry are usually swept under the rug.

I mean, there are many other directors who are probably both more skilled and excited to adapt novels or work within certain genre conventions. I'd like to do that kind of work someday, but for better or worse I'm too drawn by my own material.

Obviously when it comes to the question of telling stories about other people's lives in a situation as political as South Africa, you get to be political.

As a filmmaker, you have to understand the essence of the book and tell the story you want to see on the screen, and hopefully please yourself - because you can't possibly please everyone.

I love acting and I still want to do it, but I've such an instinct for directing, it's something that comes naturally to me. It's why I'm here on this planet.

You make a movie that is about what you want it to be about and let people have their reaction to it.

I like Spike Lee a lot. He's incredibly gifted and I don't think he gets the credit he deserves as a filmmaker.

You can't plan for people to like your movies. I knew that people were not going to run in droves to the theater for the 'In the Valley of Elah.' I knew they might not want to see it, but I still had to the movie; I felt very strongly about it. Wanting to keep telling a good story is what you want to do, a compelling story.

Every time you make a movie it's an adventure.

The best cinema is about ethics.

'The Help' sheds light on a certain truth in America, but the tragedy is if we don't get a chance to contrast it with other points of views. 'The Butler' does that, 'Red Tails' does that and that's what '96 Minutes' does.

One of the things you do as a writer and as a filmmaker is grasp for resonant symbols and imagery without necessarily fully understanding it yourself.