Hamsalekha Quotes

When Americans shoot movies they aim at the entire planet. When the French make movies, they aim at Paris.

Undeniably the American art form, too. And yet more and more, we see films made that diminish the American experience and example. And sometimes trash it completely.

Our films have the ability to tell global audiences who we are, and this is something the government should feel compelled to protect. My film, 'Bend it Like Beckham,' for example, would not have been made without the backing and support of the U.K. Film Council.

Previously the same Polish audiences would have been pressured into seeing cinema made for adults, films made by us about those spheres of life that were significant for us and which should be significant for our society.

Sometimes we make films just for our people, and it doesn't reach to anyone.

They started saying stuff like 'Should we cut the movie? Is it too this, too that?' It got drastic. It got heated. I said, 'Wait a minute, folks. I didn't make 'Smokey' for big-city audiences. I made it for the South, the Midwest and Northwest. Those are my people.'

My commitments are for Punjabi films - I want to work for the industry to uplift it.

I think there's the apparent lack of subtlety and sort of make-believe anti-sensibility connected with American art. I think this is a style, and it does relate to our culture, and I think it would be anachronistic maybe to pretend to be involved with subtle changes and modulations and things like that, because it's really not part of America.

Some things are really sacred and important to other cultures, so you have to be aware, politically, about those things before you just adopt them.

I've made six films for Disney, and they have a clause in their contracts called the morality clause that I've always refused to sign.

I'm deeply stressed as a filmmaker, and I know I'm not alone. The censorship crisis, the moral policing, the politics of it has most of us on edge. I'm scared to use certain words: like, if I use 'Bombay,' will there be a problem?

I must say here in France I had more serenity or security as I was working because I knew I was making the film the way I wished and that the film would be seen, ultimately, which is not always the case in Iran. In Iran, you always work having in mind this worry of will I be able to carry on my project as I wish and will the audience see the film.

I will never permit myself to give in to American taste and lower the standards of art.

I always feel like people misunderstand the difference between an Asian story and an Asian-American story. That's completely different, too. I have friends who grew up in Asia, and our experiences are so different. Even though we might look the same, I feel like being Asian and then being Asian-American is completely different.

I am completely attached to my roots, and therefore you will see a Pahadi touch in all my albums.

So I feel now very much like a guardian. I'm standing in front of art. I'm standing in front of cinema. I'm standing in front of Black culture. I'm standing in front of the history of America, and I'm protecting it by making art, by protecting our art, and by promoting our art.

There will always be some films that the audience would like and some that they don't. But if I start becoming a slave to appreciation, I will be subjecting myself and my talent to one particular type of taste. I don't want to do that.

I am opposed to the idea of dubbing films into Kannada.

We are - as artists, we are racialized through genre and called black - without being called black - through genre.

Just because I take my music international doesn't mean I have to sing in English. I will continue to sing in Punjabi, Hindi, Gujarati, and Tamil. I want to represent my own country through its own languages.

The younger generation of filmmakers is concerned about our roots, rather than making films with characters plucked out of the cloud or some English DVD. Actually since 2000, Tamil cinema is going through some positive changes.

When a director is remaking a film, he should tweak it, add Bengali sentiments to it and make it look like a regional movie. A copy-paste job is something I don't support at all.

If the story-teller is to nourish the roots of his culture, society must set him free to follow his vision wherever it takes him.

From jazz, the blues, country and rock to Hollywood movies, culture has in many ways been our greatest export (or our most obnoxious one, depending on your point of view).

In America, I don't think you have the creative freedom that I'm used to. Traditionally, it's a producer's cinema here.