Cinematic Diversity Quotes

I come from a mixed family, where my mother is art house cinema and my father is B-movie genre cinema. They're estranged, and I've been trying to bring them together for all of my career to one degree or another.

For documentaries, I think streaming plays an amazing role, but it's a problem when the one service you initially relied on to have an incredible buffet - 'Come and see a lot of world cinema, and the lives of ordinary people as well' - all of a sudden is narrowed down until it's just gladiator after gladiator - and bloodlust.

It's really a great luxury to have, to be able to go from big films to indie films, too. Because I'm on the job learning as an actor, and independent films is where I'm learning to act.

Some critic complained about how many small films are released in New York... it annoyed me. Those small films that are lucky to get two weeks are often my favorite films of the year.

When I was in my 20s and 30s, there was such a variety and diversity of types of films that you could see. So many of them were really more about the human condition and about relationships between people, and they were smaller films that had a much greater impact on me as a human being.

I spent 15 years of my career trying to convince people that Indian cinema is relevant. I am so proud of Indian cinema and I am so proud of my Indian roots. The IIFAs are doing a great job to this effect.

At a certain point people want to see other movies besides comic book movies so you have to be really careful what you're going to pick, and how many are going to be released within a year.

'Jurassic Park' is like 'Star Wars.' Different directors can give a different taste to each movie.

I am extremely eclectic in choosing my films as an audience, and as a direct result of that, I love exploring, I love cinema, and I love learning from different experiences.

My sister Zoya and I have been exposed to the best of cinema of all kinds - Chinese, Japanese, Italian, etc.

When I started working in Mumbai, I was interested in working in the indie and niche spaces, as they do make really good cinema, driven by good stories. But then, I decided to explore everything possible.

If one goes by my filmography, I have done several films of different genres.

I've been working with good directors - the Wachowski brothers, Spike Lee, Terry Gilliam, Mel Gibson... I love American movies, but I love European movies, too, and I want to do both.

In a way, the truth is that I was dreaming to do a movie in the United States just because, as a filmmaker, I always loved the idea of trying to make movies in a different culture, in a different way. It's always interesting to make a movie abroad.

French cinema has always been very interesting, and it's still very powerful. I think it goes to show that it's great to still have a cinema that doesn't try to emulate, for example, American cinema.

If you are going to call a film a 'black film' then you have to make a film that represents everyone that's black, which is almost impossible. That is why white films are not called white films, they are just called 'films.'

I would like to do movies of all genres.

I'm of course disillusioned with what has happened to World cinema. Now cinemas in both Eastern and Western Europe are filled with the same blockbusters from Hollywood.

In Mumbai, it's almost like Hollywood. They can appeal to different segments and still be successful. There are multiplex audiences to whom you can showcase any lifestyle. But in Tamil cinema, we need to satisfy everybody, whether urban or rural.

I'm besotted by [Kirsten Dunst] now. I think she's just wonderful. I can't think for a second that however much she'd worked in America, she would never have had the chance to play [a role in Lars Von Trier's 'Melancholia' ] like that. You have to get outside of the States to do something like that.

The problem in Hollywood is that they try to become the only kind of cinema in the world, okay? The imposition everywhere of a unique culture, which is Hollywood culture, and a unique way of life, which is the American way of life. But Hollywood has forgotten that, in the past, what made Hollywood great and what made it go ahead was the fact that Hollywood was fed with, for example, Jewish directors coming from Germany or Austria and enriching Hollywood. In 15, 20 years, Hollywood became imperialistic. Cinema goes ahead when it is marriaged by other culture. Otherwise, it turns on itself.

I'm very sensitive about the fact that there's not a lot of good work for women in cinema that also deals with strong characters. But 'strong character' doesn't mean 'masculine character' - but something that finds the strength in femininity and the beauty in femininity. And something that says you can find femininity in men in some way.

I think the problem with the cinema currently is that so much of the money that goes movies that offer a certain kind of repetition.

You realize as a director that when you are cutting a film, you want to have alternatives. You need color and choices. You don't want four takes that are identical.

I don't want to just make horror movies; I don't want to just make any type of movie - I don't just like horror movies, I love movies.