It’s very hard to find critics or a magazine today that will publish material that is genuinely independent and written without any concern about being cut off some distributor’s list or not be invited or flown into screenings.

Entertainment today constantly emphasises the message that things are wonderful the way they are. But there is another kind of cinema, which says that change is possible and necessary and it’s up to you.

In fact, it is amazing how much European films – Italian, French, German and English – have recovered a certain territory of the audience in their countries over the last few years.

Take opera for example – to go to the opera you have to dress up in a tuxedo and pay lots of money.

The world of fashion. I’m interested in the world, not in fashion! But, maybe I was too quick to put down fashion. Why not look at it without prejudice? Why not examine it like any other industry, like the movies for example?

The beautiful image today means nothing. It’s worthshit. In fact, it’s almost as if it has the opposite effect, becauseyou’re just like everything else out there.

An image that is unseen can’t sell anything. It is pure, therefore true, beautiful, in one word: innocent. As long as no eye contaminates it, it is in perfect unison with the world. If it is not seen, the image and the object it represents belong together.

I’m getting a little bored by the juxtaposition of American and other cinema. I no longer think this division is as true as it might have been in the 1980s, or the early part of the 90s.

If anything, I see myself as a witness. I’d also be pleased, if you’d call me an interpreter. I try to hear and see the message of a place and pass it on, into that other language, the universal one of images.

It’s almost scary how stylish things can look if you take the color out – how much more you see the essence of things and how much more something can appear elegant.