Sebastian Lelio

Cinema is empathy machinery, and we multiply our life experience through cinema. When it is good cinema, it almost counts as a personal experience.

Gloria' is a film about a fifty eight-year-old woman who is quite alone in life; however, she is quite optimistic. Nobody has much time for her, and so she regularly goes to these single adults' parties where she is looking for someone. By the end of the film, she doesn't necessarily find love, but she does find something else.

We all face crossroads in our lives where we can retreat into ourselves, or we can hit the dance floor.

How can you repress Rachel McAdams? She's so full of life.

Either we learn to live together and embrace the complexity of life, or we will end up with fascism again and destroy ourselves.

I'm always trying to get my characters to the point of complete rebelliousness. I like that attitude that characters feel when they own their lives. There's something beautiful in the moments when characters disobey.

Every human society has its lights and its shadows. That's the reality of existence.

The living experience of film only happens when a film is seen, and only within the spectator, because they project their own fears, desires, and fantasies upon those lights and shadows.

I grew up surrounded by strong women, and that was a very strong influence.

Latin American culture is conservative, and the rural areas are tremendously conservative. I don't believe that's just a Chilean thing.

There's something about using the cinematic device as a tool to connect with dimensions of the world that you don't know too well, you're not too familiar with. It's like a creating a bridge, or a spaceship to travel to the unknown.

My stepfather was in the navy, so I got to know a side of Chile that is not what you would expect from an artist.