If there's specific resistance to women making movies, I just choose to ignore that as an obstacle for two reasons: I can't change my gender, and I refuse to stop making movies.
The journey for women, no matter what venue it is - politics, business, film - it's, it's a long journey.
I'm drawn to filmmaking that can transport me. Film can immerse you, put you there.
I have always firmly believed that every director should be judged solely by their work, and not by their work based on their gender. Hollywood is supposedly a community of forward thinking and progressive people yet this horrific situation for women directors persists. Gender discrimination stigmatizes our entire industry. Change is essential. Gender neutral hiring is essential.
Those of us who work in the arts know that depiction is not endorsement. If it was, no artist would be able to paint inhumane practices, no author could write about them, and no filmmaker could delve into the thorny subjects of our time.
If there's specific resistance to women making movies, I just choose to ignore that as an obstacle for two reasons: I can't change my gender, and I refuse to stop making movies. It's irrelevant who or what directed a movie, the important thing is that you either respond to it or you don't. There should be more women directing; I think there's just not the awareness that it's really possible. It is.
Something becomes personal when it deviates from the norm.
Whereas painting is a more rarefied art form, with a limited audience, I recognized film as this extraordinary social tool that could reach tremendous numbers of people.
Perhaps the only thing in my favor is that I am very tenacious. I don't take 'no' very well.
Films don't cause violence, people do. Violence defines our existence. To shield oneself is more dangerous than trying to reflect it.
It's irrelevant who or what directed a movie; the important thing is that you either respond to it or you don't.
I always want to make films. I think of it as a great opportunity to comment on the world in which we live. Perhaps just because I just came off "The Hurt Locker" (2008) and I'm thinking of the war and I think it's a deplorable situation. It's a great medium in which to speak about that. This is a war that cannot be won, why are we sending troops over there? Well, the only medium I have, the only opportunity I have, is to use film. There will always be issues I care about.
There should be more women directing; I think there's just not the awareness that it's really possible.
I choose material instinctually - at the heart of it are characters that I feel are fresh and original, and allow for an opportunity to, I suppose, explore uncharted ground.
My dad used to draw these great cartoon figures. His dream was being a cartoonist, but he never achieved it, and it kind of broke my heart. I think part of my interest in art had to do with his yearning for something he could never have.
I need to have my hands on the DNA of a film.
Cinema has the capacity to be so physiological.
I don't want to be made pacified or made comfortable. I like stuff that gets your adrenaline going.
I began to exercise a lot of cinematic muscle with the precepts I had learned in the New York art world. Film was intriguing. I began to think of art as elitist, whereas film was not.
My movement from painting to film was a very conscious one.
I'm drawn to provocative characters that find themselves in extreme situations. And I think I'm drawn to that consistently.
War's dirty little secret is that some men love it.
I'd love to just think of myself as a filmmaker, and I wait for the day when the modifier can be a moot point.
You never think the universe will reward your first choice - it just doesnt work like that.
There's really no difference between what I do and what a male filmmaker might do. I mean we all try to make our days, we all try to give the best performances we can, we try to make our budget, we try to make the best movie we possibly can.
