I always thought of Djibouti as a place where human history hasn't really begun yet - or perhaps it's already over. There's something in the landscape that's stronger than human civilisation. There's no agriculture, for example, and there are live volcanoes.
When you have countries that have a lot of minerals and diamonds and oil and are in business with companies from all over the world - but these companies don't share, really, their profits - this is called post-post-colonial.
I long to make films. I'm dying to be inside the next film. I always hope there will be another film.
For some reason, I have always been interested in the stories of people who are exiled and who are deprived of rights. My main motive to make a film is to keep the society in mind and the hospitality adhered.
I am not at all interested in theories about cinema. I am only interested in images and people and sound. I am really a very simple person.
I'm not rich.
The cinema should be human and be part of people's lives; it should focus on ordinary existences in sometimes extraordinary situations and places. That is what really motivates me.
I think a film noir demands a beginning and an end.
Marguerite Duras was a very good friend of mine and an intellectual hero. She was also a sort of mother figure. Of course she was an influence.
The camera is not your eye, and it's not the eye of the audience. I don't think it's my eye, either. It belongs to the film.
What I like is the idea of a group, even if it's just two people - the idea of solitude within a group.
The history of colonisation cannot disappear.
I have no relationship to the French bourgeoisie. I don't like connecting with them.
When I was a child I had a nightmare, and in the morning, I asked my mother and father, 'If I kill someone, would you still love me?' My parents were very preoccupied with this, but I think I'm not the only one to ask for that - not love, but absolute fidelity.
A father who sees his daughter leave in the arms of another man does not feel the same as a mother. It is heartrending for her, too. But it is not the same.
What I don't like so much is to give explanations about people's behaviour... I'm not interested in making conclusions. I would never think about myself or anyone else, 'Well, this happened, this happened, this happened, so this must be the result.' It doesn't work like that with me.
I've never seen a world where only men were responsible for the violence, and the women were innocent. They go together. Men and women are a violent mixture.
You can spend your whole life in France without ever thinking about the Legion.
A career for me is something like building a bridge. You know, where to put the lifts. You have a plan. I have a blueprint for each film, but not for my life.
I don't know - music in film, for me, is not another part of a soundtrack; it is something that also helps to approach a character, to foresee the type of image - you see what I mean - it's like a part of the process.
