Yorgos Lanthimos Quotes

I started to make some commercials, which was a way for me to finally make a living at last. But it was only really a couple of films in that it looked like a viable career option.

The first part of my career, how I was paying the bills was commercials. I was just doing tons of commercials.

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.

Even better, there were established two separate committees deciding on state film funding.

I had to jump around in the arts for a while just to survive. I earned a little money here and there, playing the guitar at union meetings, functions. I sold some science-fiction stories. I knew there was absolutely no question of me not being connected with the arts, but I couldn't find any acting jobs.

It proved to be pretty impossible to get funds for a feature film in Finland. It's still small, but the film industry was miniscule at that point in the early '80s.

Apparently I work for free, look at some of the independent films I've done.

For me, the movies I like are all independent. And getting an independent feature made, it's like you get down to the selling organs part, and it just loses some of its luster.

Ultimately, the film industry has always pushed out its biggies, and I don't have a problem with that. I just wish that we'd spend more time nurturing the smaller ones.

In Australia, they set up a special fund to kick films off. It was quite an enlightened sort of move. You could go to this government bureau with scripts and and get finance for films.

Believe me, it's not easy being an actress and a producer, especially with no big daddy to support you.

I pity the French Cinema because it has no money. I pity the American Cinema because it has no ideas.

There's plenty of great independent films to do, but you can't support yourself making independent film as an actress.

Films like 'Bond' fund training schemes for film technicians of the future, and working on films themselves provides a great training ground for budding directors and cinematographers. If there's no money there for films to be made, it's like a house of cards, it all comes tumbling down.

I'm from the creative side of Hollywood. I'm up for anyone that wants to support my work. If you have eyeballs and give me a budget and are nice to me, I'm in.

I did a few independent films, but there is no money in them.

If my films did better at the box office in Japan, it would be easier to get them made.

It's great to make strong, powerful films, but in terms of people wanting to finance them, it's also very difficult.

You have to do all kinds of things like voice-overs, corporate gigs, and edit videos to support yourself.

Portland doesn't have the same kind of infrastructure that the national film hubs have. We struggle with that a little bit.

You cannot make a living doing independent films.

If you sell the film rights to your book, it doesn't mean there will be a film. I have sold the rights to five books and had zero films made. Take the money and be thankful.

You cannot believe how hard it is to try and raise money for a film. I did it for six years and it was such a failure.

Making a film, I've learned, can be an exhausting process, due to the need for backing, distribution, etc.

People say, "How do you get into the British film industry?" There is no British film industry, there are just people making films and finding their own way. It's not like in the States where there are studios and there's an actual infrastructure to it; there's just nothing here. You make it from scratch a lot of the time.