“Nobody’s seen your film but say they have heard about it and that they probably will watch it on Sunday. Maybe.”

Once again, the world in quotes: "The world of film festivals can really be a gamble - In worst case you arrive after ten hours in different means of conveyance at The No Name International Film Festival to a dead quiet hotel room, sitting on the bed like Bill Murray in 'Lost in Translation.' Nobody tells you anything about what to do or where to go. In the evening you're invited to a party celebrating the car manufacturer who's the main sponsor. You and end up in a corner with as greasy bacon snack in one hand and a glass of undrinkable sparkling sweet wine in the other, like a shy idiot from Sweden with a badge on your chest with your name on it. Nobody's seen your film but say they have heard about it and that they probably will watch it on Sunday. Maybe."        —Tomas Alfredson, director of...

Once again, the world in quotes:

“The world of film festivals can really be a gamble – In worst case you arrive after ten hours in different means of conveyance at The No Name International Film Festival to a dead quiet hotel room, sitting on the bed like Bill Murray in ‘Lost in Translation.’ Nobody tells you anything about what to do or where to go. In the evening you’re invited to a party celebrating the car manufacturer who’s the main sponsor. You and end up in a corner with as greasy bacon snack in one hand and a glass of undrinkable sparkling sweet wine in the other, like a shy idiot from Sweden with a badge on your chest with your name on it. Nobody’s seen your film but say they have heard about it and that they probably will watch it on Sunday. Maybe.”
       —Tomas Alfredson, director of the surprising “Let The Right One In,” on the sometimes sadness of the festival circuit, at Twitch.

“I’m just interested in show people, a person that can go out and change themselves in front of an audience and then go back to their house and turn it off. There’s just always something that I’ve found beautiful about show people… like W.C. Fields or Buster Keaton or Al Jolson. There’s a poetry or almost a strange insanity to what they did. When I was a kid, I would see their films, and I almost couldn’t figure out how they existed… it seemed like they hovered above reality.”
       —Harmony Korine chats with Amy Taubin at the Brooklyn Rail. (Hat tip to Greencine Daily.)

“I don’t believe that you can be a fly on the wall. I don’t believe that really exists. Unless something really dire is happening, then sometimes people just tune you out. But the idea that you don’t have a relationship with the people you’re filming, or the camera doesn’t have some kind of presence, is ludicrous. Or that you as the filmmaker don’t have a point of view is also ludicrous.”
       —Nanette Burstein at the Onion AV Club.

“I feel like I don’t want to make movies that 10 people see, and they’re the same 10 people who believe exactly what I believe. I want to make movies that many people see, and have an opportunity to change people’s minds – to open their minds – to open their hearts, to see the world slightly differently.”
       —Maggie Gyllenhaal on moving on from being an indie princess, at the Boston Globe.

[Photo: "Let the Right One In," Magnet Releasing, 2008]