I hate the concept of beauty for the sake of it. It is overrated.

My father is a teacher; my mother was a telecom employee. I come from Palermo; I was raised in Ethiopia. I am homosexual. I didn't go to film school.

The point is that filmmaking is a collaborative effort; it isn't about imposing your vision on other people. It's about the talking, you know?

If you desire something, you don't have it. It is more interesting than enjoyment, because enjoyment erases the mysteries and the vision of desire. Desire opens up possibilities but never achieves anything, whereas enjoyment is just the brutal achievement of something - and after that, it's done.

In 1993, my first documentary was about the civil war in Algeria. That was in French and in Arabic. Another short film I did was silent. What I'm trying to say is that, yes, I'm Italian, and yes, I make films with Italian money, but personally, I've always been invested in the broader world of film-making.

Everything that goes outside the rules of Italian cinema has always been cursed.

An artist must be free to choose what he does, certainly, but he must also never be afraid to do what he might choose.

An artist is forced by others to paint out of his own free will.

Art is to be free. Design is to fix.

There is no must in art because art is free.

By the will art thou lost, by the will art thou found, by the will art thou free, captive, and bound.

There is nothing so beautiful as the free forest. To catch a fish when you are hungry, cut the boughs of a tree, make a fire to roast it, and eat it in the open air, is the greatest of all luxuries. I would not stay a week pent up in cities if it were not for my passion for art.