Alternative Cinema Quotes

I was around New York at a time when independent cinema was at its peak and became kind of popular and mainstream. It got some hype, culturally. After that, studios started to have independent companies within their studio system, and they found bigger stars willing to do new material. That's kind of what it's turned into.

I want more sci-fi movies that aren't $200 million movies that I have to wait for and generally be disappointed with.

Mostly I do films that mainstream Hollywood wouldn't touch.

Actually I don't watch a lot of films but when I do, I like experimental, avant garde, European and world cinema. That is the language of cinema I am drawn towards. I don't watch much Hollywood or Bollywood.

I've spent a great deal of my life doing independent film, and that is partly because the subject matter interests me and partly because that is the basis of the film industry. That's where the film-makers come from, it's where they start and sometimes its where they should have stayed.

The Beverly Cinema in L.A. screens old, artsy movies for half the price of regular theaters. It has an old-school vibe to it. It's cheap, and the selection of movies is always interesting and different. Very romantic!

I did 'Mala Noche' as a way to do something that was outside of the system, because I was outside of the system, and I deliberately chose material that Hollywood wouldn't touch in a million years.

When I was young, I went with my mum to see some really random independent films, which really spoke to me: 'My Beautiful Laundrette,' 'Secrets and Lies'... It wasn't all arthouse, though!

I'm a New Wave baby, so I got very stimulated by foreign film.

I remember when I was at the first showing of 'John Dies at the End' at Sundance, and I was talking to some of the people in the standby crowd who were outside and didn't have tickets. They were just waiting in line to see if they could get in. It was this whole gang of die-hard sci-fi wacko people, and they were just fantastic.

In the beginning, it wasn't even a question of deciding I'm going to do independent film and not commercial films - I wasn't being offered any commercial films, and there wasn't an independent scene.

I think, since the beginning, I have been attracted to unconventional films.

What I'm realizing as I get older is that a movie's mainstream success is just as unpredictable as a movie's cult success. Plenty of movies that are truly odd and deserve cults, don't have cults. It's just as much of a crapshoot to be a cult hit as it is to be a mainstream success. Isn't that weird?

I don't even watch many huge films. I don't go to the cinema every weekend. I watch selective cinema and want to make my kind of films.

Very few people actually saw Andy's films like Chelsea Girls where he filmed seven hours, ran it on two screens, where each scene was in a different room at the Chelsea Hotel with these people he called 'Superstars" who were basically super-exhibitionists - the guy in one room high on LSD talking about masturbation, Brigid Berlin in another room playing a lesbian and shooting up people with amphetamines right through their jeans, it was all real and they were really doing it (though Brigid is now a proper lady), but you know Andy really did pre-date reality TV.

In the early '90s when the American independent movie started, it held personal vision as a premium. That was brilliant timing.

I wouldn't want to do a Bollywood film per se, but I would like to do an Indian-language film. For some reason I think Bollywood has become synonymous with commercial cinema, which is song and dance and everything that is larger than life, and I am interested in the reality.

Primarily, a festival is a platform to sell films that are not meant for the mainstream audience. Cultural exchange is also important aspect of a film festival.

I mean, there'll always be room for big productions and everything but it's good to see the other side.

Because I was a kid from north of England, the only films I had access to was not alternative cinema, which in those days would be foreign cinema; I would be looking at all the Hollywood movies that arrived at my High Street.

There is more to Indian cinema than just Bollywood. I think regional cinema, especially Tamil and Marathi cinema, are exploring some really bold themes.

Basically, I have always wanted to have an art-house cinema. A cinema where we can show films that are not necessarily the current offerings on circuit and films that are not commercial.

I love Quentin Tarantino; I love Harmony Korine, Larry Clarke.

I personally like to do independent films.

I think it's important to do smaller films because I think that's where a lot of new things are happening.