Leos Carax

“I changed my name when I was 13. I don't know why but it made sense at the time. I wanted another identity. I wanted to reinvent myself.”

“There's a real cowardice in the movie business. If you don't meet the right crazy people, you can't do it.”

“I travel, I read, I write, I have other lives. But when I have a camera, I know that's my country, my island.”

“Even a fiction film is hard to end. You can going on shooting and editing a documentary forever.”

“When I made my first film, I had hardly ever seen a camera before, and I was a young man when I arrived in Paris from the suburbs. At the time, I didn't talk much. I was very shy, so the bluff served me. I was telling people that I had no money, and that I knew how to make films, but I had no proof.”

“I've always been interested in invisible worlds, and I like to visit digital worlds, you know, any world that's imposed on us.”

“I don't think men were meant to be interviewed.”

“I like tragedies, whether they're sci-fi or something else, but I can't say I know much about any genre in particular.”

“When I was 16, I felt very relieved to discover cinema. It was like an island where I could see life and death from another perspective. Every young person should be interested in that island. It's a beautiful place.”

“I feel that cinema is my country. But it's not my business.”

“Men talk about art, and artists make art, but should artists talk?”

“I'm not against the virtual world; it's fascinating, but I don't like the way they try to impose it on us. It's a thing imposed by rich countries.”

“Every film starts with two or three images. Then I try to edit these images.”

“Cinema is a territory. It exists outside of movies. It's a place I live in. It's a way of seeing things, of experiencing life. But making films, that's supposed to be a profession.”

“Video is freeing, but also lazier. You have to recreate the love of the moment.”

“I'm not a cineaste. I've made so few films. Sometimes it feels each one is the last one or the first one.”

“I mostly don't submit to talking about my work because I would like another talk about real life.”

“I'm not only my films, but I'm pretty much my films.”

“We all get a little tired of being ourselves sometimes. The answer is to reinvent yourself, but how do you do that and what is the cost?”

“I don't work with people who ask me questions.”