Chloe Zhao Quotes

There are definitely strictly independent movies. 'Gummo' is one. Another is one I made, 'Fresh,' a $3 million movie which Boaz Yakin directed.

'Brothers McMullen' would not be picked up for theatrical distribution now.

To make a film and to sell it to the distributors you need a name.

While I was a voracious movie-goer as a boy, I never put writing and films together in my mind.

My first movie, 'Heathers,' had played at the festival, so I had a little bit of a Sundance connection, but I didn't really know about the Labs.

South Africa had very poor repertory distribution. I didn't find out about Akira Kurosawa and Tarkovsky and Werner Herzog until I got to the U.K.

There are many kinds of movies in Hong Kong. Some are commercial and others are more artistic.

Doing anything on a movie at Sundance is great.

I remember being inspired myself when smaller films, whether it's 'Beasts' or 'Winter's Bone,' wound up in the Oscars lineup.

I'm excited that 'The Good Guy' is getting distribution because indie movies they're not - people ran out of money and they're not making these movies anymore. It's all superhero movies or real obvious tent pole studio films.

I've made three musical movies which is pretty good considering that not many are made but I was lucky in other ways. I came along when independent movies were starting to boom.

Since Star Wars, that film's success led to bigger budgets, more hardware, that the great movies like the ones I did, which were studio movies, are now independent movies. They range from half a million to several million, and a lot of those have very interesting roles.

Quite honestly, it's too tough to get your movies made and then also to get out there and sell them.

'Five Easy Pieces,' 'Easy Rider' - those are indie pictures; those were not studio pictures. They had relationships with studio distribution, but they were indies.

Unfortunately my career began in Hollywood, doing a negative pickup for Universal pictures.

I don't know that much about who directs what movies, but I'm definitely inspired by the look of old movies; I find them to be really beautiful.

I think as long as there are folks on the fringe who want to make movies, the indie scene will still be around. I do think it's getting harder to get them seen though.

I remember the first time I saw 'Frances Ha' and was like, 'This is what I want to do.'

I met Jill Soloway at Sundance a couple years ago. I was there for 'Crystal Fairy', and she was there for 'Afternoon Delight'. She reached out and wanted to get together.

But you just don't know where any film is going to go, or how it's going to end up. Films so often don't get the love and attention needed to get to the right festival, or find the right distributor, or get seen by the world.

When I was around 12 or so, I saw 'The Shining.' I just remember that being a turning point for me, where I started to think about the fact that there was a hand behind the film. That it wasn't just this magical story being told - there were actual people crafting these films, and they were works of art.

My dad brought 'Clerks' to Sundance 22 years ago, and that's when his career started.

The films that are coming out of SXSW are incredible, and they should get the same bids that films at Sundance are getting.

When I went to Sundance back in 1998, indie film was all the rage, and Miramax was throwing down five or six million dollars for several films each year. Those were the salad days of indie film, and those days are over. I'm not out there worrying too much about it.

I'm very tired, but this is what every filmmaker dreams about: that their $15 million, under-the-radar film is now being seen by so many people.