“Eerst zie je de film voor je. Ongeveer zoals je droomt: panoramisch en zonder grenzen. De ellende komt als je gaat draaien. Als je de storyboards gaat tekenen eigenlijk al. Dan komt er een kader omheen. Je sluit steeds meer uit. En uiteindelijk blijft er een maggiblokje van een film over.”

— Alex van Warmerdam

“I was always of the philosophy that you can tell a lot about a character through what they order for breakfast.”

— Paul Thomas Anderson

“I love doing takes in sequence. While the camera’s on, we’ll do four takes in a row without turning the camera off. So hair and make-up can’t jump in, and the heat sort of stays on the food the whole time, you keep cooking.”

— Mike Mills

“With sushi, every cut matters, and so do the ingredients. Those two ongoing choices are the difference. What you select, and how you cut it. I think the same applies to the [video essays] I’m trying to make.”

— kogonada

“There is no autobiography in cinema that is exactly the life of a person. There’s always something from the imagination. […] The easiest way is to compare it to food. A meal is created from several ingredients. Without the spices and additions, can you eat zucchini raw without cooking it? You have to cook it and spice it up. Drama transforms the raw material, which is reality, into something beautiful.”

— Hany Abu-Assad

“Een karbonade drinken door een rietje, dat is toch wat een boek verfilmen is.”

— Peter Buwalda

“Je hebt koks die alleen maar Indisch koken, maar ik wil juist de ene keer Indisch koken, dan Italiaans, en een volgende keer weer Chinees.”

— Fons Merkies

“People ask me: ‘How is it to direct special effects? Is it fun?’ But in fact it’s kind of like getting a performance out of a bowl of shrimp salad, because it just lies there and it’s agonizing and I hate it. Working with actors is much more fun.”

— David Cronenberg

“Making a film is like cooking a steak by sitting the cold raw meat on a tray in an office and having people occasionally walk into the office and breathe on the steak.”

— Douglas Adams

“There is no separation between form and content for me. I’ve always said I don’t want to make eye-candy; I want to make eye protein.”

— Guillermo Del Toro