goodbyedragoninn:

What other filmmakers and films have been important to you as an artist?

Elia Suleiman: The Japanese filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu and the Chinese filmmaker Hou Hsiao Hsien. They made it possible for me to make movies. When I saw their films, I thought, “These people are so close to me.” When positioning a camera for the first time, you ask yourself, “Should I place it here and not up there?” It is a process of elimination. But it is in that place I feel at home, behind the camera. It is a way of expressing something personal and for something personal this is where you have to do the interrogation. It is a mixture of how I naturally fell into a point of view [with my] camera, very personally, and at the same time this personal point of view identifies with these filmmakers. So a combination of things gave me the faith that I was in the right place.