Yorgos Lanthimos Quotes

Occasionally I'll be a producer for hire on a larger budget movie, but with Blumhouse Pictures, we mainly focus on micro-budget, under-$5-million-dollar movies. That's what we're in business to do, and that's what we're in business to make.

Definition of an independent film is torture with less money and time.

There is a future for English films. Don't we all talk, breathe, and think in English? If we can talk and think in English, we can also make films in English.

My partner, Beth Alexander, and I want to produce smaller films, but commercially viable films that will enable me to make the kinds of movies I want to make.

I think that there's a lot more freedom in the low budget, the independent films where, unfortunately, you don't have the money, necessarily, to get the orchestras in there to play a lot of stuff. But, you have a lot more freedom, very often.

Reservoir Dogs is a small film, and part of its charm was that it was a small film. I'd probably make it for $3 million now so I'd have more breathing room.

Sony could have $50 million and a sound stage and A-list actors and never make the same film. The constraints on this film became the essence of this film, became the power of this film.

Even when you have a big budget, you can't just shoot everything.

I always think of my films within the context of where aesthetics meet economics. That's the nature of making art - not being naive about what is possible and getting what you need to tell the story you want to tell.

I finally, you know, moved to Mexico City, where the film industry is. I started working there as a producer, which is a very, very valid thing for women to do, because we always produce for men, right?

At the end of the day, the less money you have, the easier it is to make a movie.

You have to have a certain amount of limitations, I think, to make art and to make something that can be alive on film. Money can get in the way of that.

The essential nature of all filmed entertainment is that you area always straddling the line of whether or not you can realize something that you want to do.

Stop-motion has limitations, any form of filmmaking does, but stop-motion has a lot of limitations.

I think, in general, independents don't have a lot of access to really good scriptwriters or actors or actresses, so they're very limited in what they can do.

The thing I love the most about low budget films is the creative freedom.

It's always a challenge to make an independent film. It's always a challenge to make a low budget film.

I hope I'm always lucky enough to be able to work in theater, TV, and big films and small films. I think there's advantages and disadvantages to all of them. The fact that this was a small film without much money and without much time made it rich in energy and momentum and drive when we were actually making it 'cause that's all you've got. You've just got the story and the people.

I think part of making movies is dealing with restrictions of freedom and budget. I'd rather deal with restrictions of budget. It's better to feel free within any budget.

If you want to do a film, steal a camera, steal raw stock, sneak into a lab and do it!

I'm from that world where I feel so comfortable making small independent movies.

The motion picture made in Hollywood, if it is to create art at all, must do so within such strangling limitations of subject and treatment that it is a blind wonder it ever achieves any distinction beyond the purely mechanical slickness of a glass and chromium bathroom.

We had very, very, very little money to make the show [ Gigi Does It]. We shot every episode in two days. It was non-WGA, non-DGA, so we couldn't write anything. The whole thing had to be improv.

We have creative freedom because of budgets. Ever since I have been doing low budget movies, we've really had creative freedom.

I did a film that I shot in 24 hours that was self-financed for $5,000. It was a feature called Looking For Jimmy that I shot with a bunch of friends. I spent eight months editing because we had 24 hours of footage that made no sense and I learned a lot about directing while editing that film.