Quotes from Claire Denis

I always thought Vincent Lindon had a sexy body, a body you can trust, a solid body you can lean on.

I can't imagine a society with absolutely no solidarity. For me, it's a nightmare. And I don't want to live in a place like that.

I don't know - music in film, for me, is not another part of a soundtrack; it is something that also helps to approach a character, to foresee the type of image - you see what I mean - it's like a part of the process.

For some reason, I have always been interested in the stories of people who are exiled and who are deprived of rights. My main motive to make a film is to keep the society in mind and the hospitality adhered.

What I like is the idea of a group, even if it's just two people - the idea of solitude within a group.

I don't want to be mysterious.

You don't grow up naive in Africa.

My grandfather died when I was 12, but I remember the sorrow of my mother. Even now, she's an old lady, but when she speaks about her father, she looks young. A love like that is undefeated, you know?

I can be unkind to someone in the street or in the subway - I'm a bad-tempered person - but I'm unable to be unkind to a character. They exist because of me, and I have responsibility for them.

I think a film noir demands a beginning and an end.

What I don't like so much is to give explanations about people's behaviour... I'm not interested in making conclusions. I would never think about myself or anyone else, 'Well, this happened, this happened, this happened, so this must be the result.' It doesn't work like that with me.

In a way, I feel obliged to respect Jean Rouch because I am told he is very important.

My films are always looked at strangely, and there is nothing I can do about it.

I hate family pressures and family responsibilities. I'm more comfortable as a stranger. I always imagined I could just live in a hotel. I'm afraid of family.

I always thought of Djibouti as a place where human history hasn't really begun yet - or perhaps it's already over. There's something in the landscape that's stronger than human civilisation. There's no agriculture, for example, and there are live volcanoes.

I suppose I am interested in the variety of human life - how people live. I am most interested in individuals and how they respond to challenges or to difficulties or just to each other. I am curious about people.

'Chocolat' was a sort of statement of my own childhood, recognizing I experienced something from the end of the colonial era and the beginning of independence as I was a child that really made me aware of things I never forgot - a sort of childhood that made me different when I was a student in France.

I hate the victimization of women, always.

I long to make films. I'm dying to be inside the next film. I always hope there will be another film.

I am the eldest child; it's lonely at the top.

Freedom is not having a big budget.