Hirokazu Kore-eda

“Privacy is not really a concept in Japan.”

“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.”

“In the eighties, there was a huge shift in the humor of Japanese television. Up until then, the humor was garnered by people who said humorous things, but in the '80s, it was garnered by people who were being laughed at while the audience watches and watches.”

“You only get back what you are prepared to put in.”

“When I am 60 or 70, I am sure I can still continue to make films on families.”

“When I was a child, I loved making stories, so I thought maybe I would be a novelist.”

“There's a difference between people being free and the atmosphere of 'freedom.'”

“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.”

“Fast cutting, loud music, blood spewing everywhere, and gunshots permeating the scenes does not necessarily make for a shocking movie.”

“I would say that 'After the Storm' is much more informed by my personal life than my other movies.”

“I'm less interested in death itself than in people whose lives are touched by it.”

“I never want to be the all-knowing god of the story, manipulating what's to happen or the action.”

“I wanted to make 'Nobody Knows,' a kind of summation of the experiences I gained from making my first three films, the good ones as well as the bad ones.”

“When I have been told that my films remind people of Ozu, I have never been too convinced.”

“I have been told that... time doesn't flow in a straight line in my films. It goes round in a circle. Sometimes people comment that the films remind them of Ozu. Maybe that's right. But in Japan, nobody comments on how time passes in my films. So perhaps that is a different way of thinking.”

“There was a time when I thought Kim Novak was the sexiest woman in the world.”

“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.”

“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.”

“When I make films, I don't think of any other directors or their work in terms of the rhythm of the editing or the tenor of the performances.”

“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.”