KARYN KUSAMA

There's something about the girls and the boys who just live for the moment and don't think a second beyond their needs and the here and now that, ultimately, is pretty tragic.

The best horror walks a line that's completely on a psychological level, not needing the typical tropes of traditional horror filmmaking, then also having to tease out those elements in a way that makes the audience feel like they know what they're in.

I'm very interested in dysfunction. I kind of realized in my first film that a character with so much rage that she didn't know where to put it was both heartbreaking and interesting to me.

I don't necessarily believe that stories need closure. I just believe they need a beginning, middle, and end, but the end doesn't have to prevent us from continuing to grapple with the story at hand. It ideally should demand that we remain engaged with the story.

For me, I guess I feel like the notion of 'feel good' entertainment... I'm all for it, but I just think you really, really, really have to earn it. I'm not sure I have a lot of movies in me where I see a world that earns it.

If you look at most mainstream filmmaking, to be honest, some of these films aren't even asking questions anymore at all.

For better and for worse, I feel like sorrow and grief are really transformative personal experiences for me, and I question what I would be had I decided to take a different path and not embrace that kind of pain.

I have had to really grapple with the fact that, while I wish things could be different at times, I ultimately needed to experience the transformation that comes with pain and loss and sorrow.

I think that idea that sort of our emotional self and our emotional life is a faucet that you turn on and off, and that we are in control of it entirely, that's a really appealing idea for a lot of people. But there are certainly the times where it's appealing to me, but it never quite works the way I hoped it would.

One of the things you hear about when studying the nature of fanaticism is that a lot of the time, people don't start as fanatics. They shift and evolve into that state. That's a process, a systematic process of losing your identity and sense of self.

To me, the thing that sets us apart from so many other animal species is our ability to ask questions, investigate, gather information, come to our own conclusions, and sometimes depart from the pack, sometimes move away from the tribe.

I think there's a reason why some companies have such dismal records. It's not because they're clueless; it's because they systematically don't want to hire women.

I get why we don't want to be in pain, but there's something very essential about what happens when we're in pain and some of the growth that can come from it if we stare at it straight in the face.

I don't think I could have had a better experience than I did with 'Girlfight.' It was a humbling experience to be so well received. And it was equally humbling to be ripped to pieces with 'Aeon Flux.'

When I reflect on the losses I've experienced, I've come to believe that those experiences were transformative, that they shaped who I am.

I think most women have to fight very hard for the opportunities they want, which isn't to say that most artists don't have to do that, male or female, but I'm definitely aware of just how difficult it is to find stories that interest me, particularly.

What might the world look like if we took some chances on the film-makers we might be afraid of?

Somehow, even though you have less time and less money, the thing about making indie films is somehow you have another kind of resource: a human resource, where you can really look to your creative colleagues and actually ask questions that are honest.

It is important to know what audiences might expect from their genre movies, but I think it is also important to not give them everything they want. As a viewer, I think it can get pretty boring that way.

The short form, for those people who can master it - and I am by no means one of them - it is very admirable, because it is really hard to tell stories that can stick with the audience and still be between 5 and 30 minutes long. I think it's a real challenge.

I think the crux of this urgent and real conversation about representation and diversity in art-making and storytelling both behind and in front of the camera ultimately has to do with simply seeing more human perspectives.

Horror, almost better than any of the other genres, pits the will to live against the will toward nihilism. I just think that's worth exploring. I don't know what is more important, actually, to explore than that very dynamic.

The people in the decision-making positions need to be thinking differently about who to hire, and looking more unsparingly at their choices. Why give this person a break over that person? Why give this person a second chance over that person? I do think that's where gender comes into play.

Sci-fi and horror, particularly, allow a storyteller to depart from, let's say, the demands of cinema verite or kitchen-sink realism or, even, just relatable dramas and can go into areas that are either - in the case of horror - more primally effective or, in the case of sci-fi, more speculative or imaginative.

I think there is really something we need to examine about the notion of careers, and are women encouraged and given the same opportunities to have vital healthy careers in which they are challenged by certain things, they try new things, they struggle, maybe they stumble, maybe they fail, and then there's more room to succeed as well.