In Lithuania, I am known as a poet, and they don't care about my cinema. In Europe, they don't know my poetry; in Europe, I am a filmmaker. But here, in the United States, I am only a maverick!
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I feel that cinema is my country. But it's not my business.
In England, I'm a horror movie director. In Germany, I'm a filmmaker. In the US, I'm a bum.
I always try to preserve my cinematographic style, even while I work in the US. I wish to always be European.
I'm a European, and I live there. I work in European films, and then once in a while, I make an American movie.
I did literature at university, so I had a real relationship with poetry, but they don't make many films about the world of a poet.
I have zero interest in performing in films to try to convey any kind of message. My job is to be entertaining. There's a very different point of view about messages in films in Europe than there is in the States. Audiences rebel because they feel that they are being preached to.
What really matters is your movies and how good a person you are. Otherwise, tabloids and news channels writing about you only builds your curiosity and stardom and propels you to reach wider places.
In America, I don't think you have the creative freedom that I'm used to. Traditionally, it's a producer's cinema here.
In Europe, there are many filmmakers working in the same territory: immigration, and the things that are most disruptive to European life today. That's not a judgment. I think it's good that cinema looks at such things.
But I don't think of myself as a foreigner or a Frenchman! I just think of myself as a director. Whether I'm French or Australian or whatever, it's really not important.
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