A biography for Ira Sachshasn’t been written yet.
“My father moved out to Park City in in the mid-'70s and lived in a Winnebago behind a hippie joint called Utah Coal & Lumber that was one of only two or three restaurants at that time. Park City was a sleepy little mining town, with not a condo in sight.”
“I've made four films about the destructive nature of relationships, of secrets and lies, and I think I'm no longer interested in that subject - which is a wonderful relief.”
“Intimacy is something to be cherished, and intimacy is not something to be afraid of.”
“I grew up thinking there was something called 'independent film,' which I wouldn't necessarily have had access to if there wasn't Sundance.”
“A lot of what I think I do as a director is try to give everything over to the actor. So I disappear.”
“I remember being a teenager and seeing Seymour Cassel across a crowded room and being incredibly star struck, and not having the courage to say, 'Hello.'”
“I've been close to two or three couples, gay and straight, who have been together for 45 years.”
“I always think of my films within the context of where aesthetics meet economics. That's the nature of making art - not being naive about what is possible and getting what you need to tell the story you want to tell.”
“I could not - and I still cannot - see a sustainable career as a filmmaker in which I focus fully on our gay stories.”
“When you live with people you know them better than you care to.”
“Capturing intimacy is pretty much the only thing I'm interested in. That's what excites me and what I find beautiful in movies personally - that almost obscene sense that we shouldn't be this close to these people. I find that very inviting and meaningful as an audience member.”
“Seeing the road show of 'A Chorus Line' in 1977 at the Orpheum Theater in downtown Memphis was a life-changing event for me: there were gay people, on the stage, and they all lived in New York.”
“My films might have been queer - because I was - but they were not gay.”
“I conveniently was not accepted to film school, which I applied to in 1987, and so I decided I would become a filmmaker instead of a student.”
“Every time you make a film, you create a world. You make decisions about sets and costumes, and you create a universe connected to reality, but not reality itself.”
“Everyone wants to belong, and everyone needs to belong in order to make a career on some level.”
“One of the biggest things that happens to many people when they have kids is that you suddenly realize that you're not going to last forever. You know there is another generation who are the heroes of their own stories, and that is humbling.”
“Every film is hard to fund.”
“I got into filmmaking in order to tell very personal stories, and in this day and age, the opportunity seems all the more precious.”
“I've always been interested in how the individual comes to know and accept him or herself, which I think has been hard for me.”