Andrzej Wajda Quotes

We need to work out who is paying for film; in the U.K., it is increasingly difficult to get production funds - and pre-sales demand more and more shot/cut material.

It's very difficult to raise money, especially in the United States, for independent movies.

I turn up in Los Angeles every now and then, so I can get some big money films in order to finance my smaller money films.

I think the situation in Toronto is such that there are funding organizations which make it easy for a film to raise more money than it needs and very often that works against a film.

My advice to American filmmakers is to marry a European. I'm not kidding. Otherwise they don't qualify for international co-production treaties.

When people are feeling insecure about their jobs and there are cuts to be made, it's hard to put up an argument that the film industry needs funding.

Any movie I've ever made, the minute you walk on the set they tell you who's the person to buy it from.

Every film is hard to fund.

To find money to make a film, you have to write maybe 50 pages to explain what you'd like to do, what the film will be, but everybody lies. Because he doesn't know what the film will be. Everybody writes 50 pages and sends it to a TV channel, a producer, to get money, but everybody lies. Or else your film is not interesting.

New Zealand was kind of getting a reputation for making middle-of-the-road films that weren't really that unique. They were kind of New Zealand versions of overseas films, and for sure, having an Oscar nomination totally helped me get funding.

Many films you see in theaters are financed through outside sources. With big films, the studio will pay, hoping to reap the reward of their big bet. But with medium and small-sized films, outside production companies and financiers often foot the bill.

The way financing for independent movies goes is great. You get the money from the guy who's actually doing the distribution in France. You say, "Do you want a piece of this movie?" And he's got to sell this movie to get his money back. That's the brains of it; that's the genius of this financing. "You want Germany? Give us a million dollars and you've got Germany."

The financing of my films has always been international.

I was the Chair of the WIFF Foundation, which is the philanthropic arm of Women In Film. The foundation runs the several programs including one that provide our film finishing fund. So we help women complete their films with a grant from Netflix. It's great to be associated with award winning films like 'Freeheld' and 'Circumstance'.

All of my books have the potential to become movies, it's just a question of finding a studio who wants to get behind me and put up the money to make the movie.

Look at the current tax code. It’s a 10 million word mess..

Every coercive monopoly was created by government intervention into the economy: by special privileges, such as franchises or subsidies, which closed the entry of competitors into a given field, by legislative action.

Everyone in this room is making investments in oil companies through taxes. Everyone in this room is investing money in hedge funds. They don’t need that money. We need to make the right investments.

You can get money and make a really cheap movie. You can, from independent financers who are just giving you money to support artists. This is what was happening in the '90s, and I was very fortunate to be a part of that.

The film business has changed hugely. You seem to spend about 30 per cent of the time producing the films and 70 per cent talking about it.

I don't think 'Guts' could get financed as a movie.

We don't need a lot of initiatives for women in film; what we need is money.

I learned some big lessons on my first film, a horror film which was never released in the U.S., even though we sold it to Harvey Weinstein for a lot of money.

We make a lot of movies that I don't think merit a wide release. We have this label called Tilt, and we have the movies come out on that, and that's fine. But it shocks me when, having done this a few times, when I really believe a movie should get a wide release, and I struggle to get it released. That does surprise me.

Both SOPA and PIPA are toxic. My view is that anyone who supports these bills either doesn't understand what they are supporting or is simply no friend of innovation. And, if you are no friend of innovation, I can't support you in any way, as innovation is the lifeblood of our economy, our country, and what I've dedicated my life to.