I want to remind people that we create films for the MMFF as gifts to them, not to see whose entry is better or which film earned more at the tills.
I am a massive film geek, and I love movies.
I loved American filmmakers when I was growing up. I didn't get to film school or anything. I was a very bad student. I just devoured film, but there was a point in my teens when I started to run a little film society.
I'm the mother of two daughters, one of whom is going to get possessed. It's really spooky and great. I'm shooting it right now. That's why I'm in Chicago. I wanted to tell you about the other direction that this trying-to-get-more-female-characters thing has taken, which is that I launched my own film festival last year.
I never do, I don't even go to the retrospectives.
I think one day I'd like to win an Oscar.
If you look at any film fest, the setting gives it colour. Be it Goa, Cannes or even Berlin in the winter, the setting makes these festivals special and gives it a definition.
An Oscar is a symbol that is known in every corner of the world.
I can't be enticed by a big commercial film.
Cannes Film Festival prefers political films. We have to target certain festivals based on our films.
I actually know the moment I became known. It was at the Cannes Film Festival, when they showed 'The Virgin Spring.' I walked into that theater as one person, and I walked out as another.
When you work in film, you learn to appreciate a distributor. You can have this great little film, but if you don't have a distributor, you are sitting in your living room with a great little film.
For me, those little cinemas in Paris where I saw many art films for the first time meant that cinema became a kind of pilgrimage site.
David O. Russell is probably my favorite filmmaker. He's not only a great director, but he's also a great writer.
Doing anything on a movie at Sundance is great.
In 2009, I went to Cannes with a short film in the Kodak emerging program at the American Pavilion.
When you premiere somewhere like Cannes, it's huge. It's nerve-wracking.
There has never been a female director who has won an Oscar. There has only been one woman who won at the Cannes Film Festival.
One year, I went to Cannes with the film 'The Indian Runner' that Sean Penn directed. Everyone else in the film was all the same height, and on the red carpet, when they were taking photos, none of them would stand next to me, and I totally got it.
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.
Our films are changing so people across the world can see them - when 'Highway' premiered at the Berlin Film Festival, a Polish lady said to me, 'It has a strong message for women.' So it's good to know our films are connecting universally.
I couldn't get a job to save my life. That's why I wrote 'Road to Paloma.' That got into Sundance and got into that scene, and that's how I got the role in 'The Red Road.'
When I started work with LucasArts Computer Division back in 1984, I went to the Palace of Fine Arts and saw the Festival of Animation for the first time. I loved the diverse collection of animated films the festival held.
I don't believe in competition for artistic things. I just like the atmosphere of the Cannes festival. I don't want to win anything or lose anything.
The first time that I came to Cannes, I think it was in 1953, I was 18 and unknown.
