Eric Fellner Quotes

There's something that people misunderstand about screen quotas. It's not about rejecting or hating other countries' films, but about protecting our domestic film industry.

I pity the French Cinema because it has no money. I pity the American Cinema because it has no ideas.

It's not simply that British films do well at the box office and generate revenue, it's that they provide a window to the world of what Britain and its culture is about.

National film industries tend to move in cycles. In Australia right now, we're on a high, a feeling of potential, which as yet shows no sign of flagging. But the word 'industry' is misleading. A small national cinema has no industry in the Hollywood sense.

After 'The Gamekeeper' I made one other film called 'Looks and Smiles,' but making British films was very difficult. There wasn't a tradition of British cinema.

Britain has nurtured me and made me able to make movies that have travelled round the world.

I'm not partial to any system, but at the same time, I'm a Korean actor, so I expect to work mainly on Korean projects.

All the arts are predominantly national, and therefore the Australian Film Commission should be funding us. The battle gets more and more vicious each year.

It's weathered many a storm, but the British film industry is, thankfully, still afloat.

I can't always be making 'British films.' Why should we be making films about corsets and horses and girls learning to drive when Americans send over an event movie and make five or 10 million?

I make American films for American audiences and Asian films for Asian audiences.

When Americans shoot movies they aim at the entire planet. When the French make movies, they aim at Paris.

I think it's important that nobody forgets that although Hollywood commercially dominates the world cinema, in fact what comes out of the filmmaking here is only a tiny slice out of the massive amount of operation that goes on around the world.

Can you imagine what it would be like if all the Aussie film talent was able to make Australian stories?

I'm less comfortable making American movies because I don't know them so well.

In Australia, they set up a special fund to kick films off. It was quite an enlightened sort of move. You could go to this government bureau with scripts and and get finance for films.

Hollywood is a wonderful machine for making big movies. In France, we make smaller and more personal films, but if things keep changing, this will disappear. The industry in Italy is practically gone. Cinecitta now is used mostly by filmmakers from others places, like Martin Scorsese.

Our films have the ability to tell global audiences who we are, and this is something the government should feel compelled to protect. My film, 'Bend it Like Beckham,' for example, would not have been made without the backing and support of the U.K. Film Council.

What I learned at Miramax is that if you see where extraordinary creative talent can be brought into the family, move quickly, because if you don't, someone else will.

The U.K. needs more first class studio space to encourage the growth of the film and TV sector.

If African film makers had one-tenth the amount commanded by film makers the world over - even the amount used by so-called shoestring film makers - I think we would see quite an explosion of African films on the world scene.

I don't want all of American cinema to be big cartoons that are just made to be digested by the entire world.

I live in Australia, and I am Australian, and because I grew up in an era where we didn't have a film industry, and now we do, it's just really exciting for me to be able to say that I work in my own culture in a medium that I find fascinating.

So many people from the West are coming into India, all the studios have come into India, and they're making films here, whether that's Fox, Warner Bros, Disney, everyone. That stands as testament for us, so why are we afraid of sharing our talent with the world? We must.

The multiculturalism of Britain is one of our greatest strengths in music, literature, and visual art, but the TV and film industry doesn't tap into the multicultural talent pool in the U.K. as much as they do in the U.S.