Claire Denis

Often, women as little girls are sent off on a track for them to live a perfect life and be a perfect woman. Not for boys, who can be themselves with their mood and their temper.

Life is not better and more moral than it was in the '50s. It's just the same.

I suppose I am interested in the variety of human life - how people live. I am most interested in individuals and how they respond to challenges or to difficulties or just to each other. I am curious about people.

The cinema should be human and be part of people's lives; it should focus on ordinary existences in sometimes extraordinary situations and places. That is what really motivates me.

Marguerite Duras was a very good friend of mine and an intellectual hero. She was also a sort of mother figure. Of course she was an influence.

White Material' is about courage and craziness.

When you have countries that have a lot of minerals and diamonds and oil and are in business with companies from all over the world - but these companies don't share, really, their profits - this is called post-post-colonial.

I am not at all interested in theories about cinema. I am only interested in images and people and sound. I am really a very simple person.

You can spend your whole life in France without ever thinking about the Legion.

Filmmaking creates a sort of - trust, maybe. It has led me to a group of people I feel good with. We have something in common because of film, when otherwise we might have nothing.

I always thought Vincent Lindon had a sexy body, a body you can trust, a solid body you can lean on.

I think cinema is linked to literature by a lot of social ways. Our brains are full of literature - my brain is.