My very, very first professional job was when I was 19 years old - I got a job doing an educational industrial film on Shell Motor Oil's oil products. I really put my heart into it - I wrote a script for it, I did a lot of research.

What I learned most was how to tell a story in 15 seconds or 30 seconds or 60 seconds - to have some kind of goal of what to try to do and make it happen in that time.

In Finland, getting a university degree is the first thing that you expect your kids to do.

I loved cutting together simple commercials about margarine or soft drinks - all kinds of silly products - but I tried to make the commercials different.

In the Eighties, Japanese fashion designers brought a new type of creativity; they brought something Europe didn't have. There was a bit of a shock effect, but it probably helped the Europeans wake up to a new value.

When I was a young person I went to the university and I learned a rational language, to think with the left side of the brain. But in the right side of the brain you have intuition and imagination. Words are not the truth; they indicate the way to go, but you need to go alone, in silence. Symbols have a language that kills the words.

It is above all by the imagination that we achieve perception and compassion and hope.

First of all, what in this world does not revolve around money? But money is a big part of film, unlike a lot of other art forms.