Quotes from Claire Denis

I hate the idea of growing accustomed to someone and being faithful.

I really started watching films when I was 14. As I became a teenager, there was nothing that really interested me apart from music, books and films.

When you have countries that have a lot of minerals and diamonds and oil and are in business with companies from all over the world - but these companies don't share, really, their profits - this is called post-post-colonial.

I was never very interested in my own experience, I think, in fact, if my films have a common link, maybe it's being a foreigner - it's common for people who are born abroad - they don't know so well where they belong.

You can spend your whole life in France without ever thinking about the Legion.

I have no relationship to the French bourgeoisie. I don't like connecting with them.

The history of colonisation cannot disappear.

The only thing I find interesting is self-interest.

I have very strong relationships with my actors when I'm shooting. When you love an actor's work, you always feel you have to go further, and you make several films together. One film just gives you time to get acquainted.

I'm not witty.

I am not at all interested in theories about cinema. I am only interested in images and people and sound. I am really a very simple person.

I didn't foresee my career. Things happen.

I've never seen a world where only men were responsible for the violence, and the women were innocent. They go together. Men and women are a violent mixture.

I'm tiny. I'm small.

I reproach so many things about my family, but on the other hand, I kept asking them to be my family.

We don't all look alike - some people think they're tough, some people think they're fragile - but in the end, we share a lot.

When making a film, if I feel nothing in my body, I can't work. I have to touch. I have to feel. I never stop touching.

Often, women as little girls are sent off on a track for them to live a perfect life and be a perfect woman. Not for boys, who can be themselves with their mood and their temper.

Marguerite Duras was a very good friend of mine and an intellectual hero. She was also a sort of mother figure. Of course she was an influence.

In Kurosawa's films, the tragedy is that this strong man was crushed by corruption or mistrust at the end.

I'm a very sinister person.

The cinema should be human and be part of people's lives; it should focus on ordinary existences in sometimes extraordinary situations and places. That is what really motivates me.

I am always asked, 'You grew up in Africa?' Every time I introduce a film, or I'm interviewed, 'You grew up in Africa?'

Filmmaking creates a sort of - trust, maybe. It has led me to a group of people I feel good with. We have something in common because of film, when otherwise we might have nothing.