My mother loved films! She adored Ingrid Bergman, Joan Fontaine, Vivien Leigh. We couldn't afford to go together to the cinema, but she was always watching their movies on TV.
It's definitely good to have a hit from time to time, though not too often. If you have a few hits in a row, people start to think every film you make will be a hit, which is a big mistake.
When I choose child actors, I chose them for their personalities. And then I work with their own vocabulary, so I'm not imposing text or dialogue on them: I'm just receiving.
My mother was really against it when I said I wanted to make films. She said that I should be a civil servant because that was safe, and it had security. But my mother was always very proud of my movies and would give videocassettes of them to all the neighbours.
I don't really like something serious depicted in a serious way; that's not my style.
With 'Nobody Knows,' I consciously set out to make a fiction film, which is a different approach from 'Distance,' but I still applied a lot of the things I learned from making 'Distance': for example, how to use the camera in relation to the children and how to create the right atmosphere on set.
I'm so entranced by what unfolds in front of the camera. It seems wonderfully out of my control.
A film is not a vehicle to accuse, or to relay a specific message. If we reduce a film to this, we lose all hope for cinema to ignite a richer conversation.
It is righteous to receive state subsidies to make films that criticise the state - I want Japanese people to accept such European values.
I've been a fan of Yoshida Akimi's manga for a long time; she's one of a few women's manga writers that I always read.
I never want to be the all-knowing god of the story, manipulating what's to happen or the action.
Reflecting on the past, where the film industry became united with 'national interest' and 'national policy,' I tend to think that keeping a clear distance from government authority is the right thing to do.
There was a time when I thought Kim Novak was the sexiest woman in the world.
My father did not have a lot of security in his life. He did odd jobs. He had a real struggle to make money. He lost a lot of time in his 20s, after the war, because he was sent to a forced-labour camp in Siberia.
Tokyo is wonderful for distribution of international films, a lot of Iranian films, Taiwanese films. But most of the art films are from Europe and Asia.
When I make films, I don't think of any other directors or their work in terms of the rhythm of the editing or the tenor of the performances.
The Japanese don't have a specific religion, but a spirituality. A cap, shoes, and a table have a spirituality. When you eat an apple, you don't say you eat it: you say, 'I am receiving it.' Kind of like you are thanking the food.
I have been told that... time doesn't flow in a straight line in my films. It goes round in a circle. Sometimes people comment that the films remind them of Ozu. Maybe that's right. But in Japan, nobody comments on how time passes in my films. So perhaps that is a different way of thinking.
