I'm less interested in death itself than in people whose lives are touched by it.
A film is not a vehicle to accuse, or to relay a specific message. If we reduce a film to this, we lose all hope for cinema to ignite a richer conversation.
I've been a fan of Yoshida Akimi's manga for a long time; she's one of a few women's manga writers that I always read.
The Japanese don't have a specific religion, but a spirituality. A cap, shoes, and a table have a spirituality. When you eat an apple, you don't say you eat it: you say, 'I am receiving it.' Kind of like you are thanking the food.
If my films did better at the box office in Japan, it would be easier to get them made.
My mother was really against it when I said I wanted to make films. She said that I should be a civil servant because that was safe, and it had security. But my mother was always very proud of my movies and would give videocassettes of them to all the neighbours.
'Like Father, Like Son' gave me the opportunity to show when it is not good with a father.
Hardly anyone says anything real in the courtroom. Almost everything is decided ahead of time, and the truth is found behind the scenes.
My grandfather had Alzheimer's. He would eat everything and anything that was around; then he wouldn't remember that he ate it and would demand to be fed again.
Yes, a family is interesting. You can get a lot of drama in the conflicts there. It's like the sea. It seems calm, but inside there is conflict.
I watch 'Electronic Boy' faithfully every week - not because I like the show but because I'm interested in where the smartest T.V. producers and directors are going, what direction they are headed in.
As the Japanese family gets more and more atomized, grandparents don't live with the nuclear family, so parents of children can't consult with their own parents about how to raise their children and rely on that to help raise them.
We can see loss as something missing, but that missing space can be filled with something else, and that creates healing.
It is righteous to receive state subsidies to make films that criticise the state - I want Japanese people to accept such European values.
I have never made a film to praise or to criticize something. That kind of filmmaking is nothing but propaganda.
Directing while overcoming differences of language and culture is a stimulating challenge.
Tokyo is wonderful for distribution of international films, a lot of Iranian films, Taiwanese films. But most of the art films are from Europe and Asia.
My mother loved films! She adored Ingrid Bergman, Joan Fontaine, Vivien Leigh. We couldn't afford to go together to the cinema, but she was always watching their movies on TV.
My father did not have a lot of security in his life. He did odd jobs. He had a real struggle to make money. He lost a lot of time in his 20s, after the war, because he was sent to a forced-labour camp in Siberia.
We used to have prawn tempura: that was my mother's favourite dish. But she had to go out to work instead of my father, so she couldn't find the time to cook nice meals. So we ate more modern food: a lot of frozen and instant food. But I never complained about it to my mother.
