Sebastian Lelio

“Cinema is empathy machinery, and we multiply our life experience through cinema. When it is good cinema, it almost counts as a personal experience.”

“We all have a potential revolutionary energy inside.”

“It's not that I only want to make films about women, but from my experience, I have been very interested in the women who play these characters.”

“I have never been religious, but I've seen the strength of it.”

“My stepfather was in the navy, so I got to know a side of Chile that is not what you would expect from an artist.”

“Death is astute as a master. It's a process that teaches people aspects of themselves.”

“There's something about using the cinematic device as a tool to connect with dimensions of the world that you don't know too well, you're not too familiar with. It's like a creating a bridge, or a spaceship to travel to the unknown.”

“I went to church as a boy, and then I quite quickly stepped away from religion. But I remained fascinated by the need people have for religion.”

“I grew up in a dictatorship in a very Catholic country.”

“There has been too much silliness and cliche when looking at older people: I think that hides a fear of death that we have as a society. We are obsessed with youth and denying death.”

“In the case of 'Fantastic Woman,' I wanted to make it a more complex animal than just a 'cause' film. Even though I was sympathizing with the character's struggle, I didn't want to be trapped at that level - it's important, but it can be quite basic.”

“Chilean society is conservative, but U.S. society is puritanical.”

“I was writing when I was very young, and then I became interested in everything - I wanted to do photography. I wanted to act. I wanted to write plays, and then I wanted to film and to paint, but I felt that film had a condition that reunites everything.”

“I wanted to be a poet. I wrote from ages 15 to 22, but I left it because I discovered, and fell in love with, cinema.”

“Sometimes we have to disobey in order to transcend, in order to survive.”