"I love Time Bandits, and it obviously fits into the kids’-adventure-fantasy stuff that I’m into. The Adventures of Baron Munchausen was actually the first film I ever saw in a theater when I was eight years old, and I was euphoric. After that I rented every Terry Gilliam movie. In Time Bandits, he mixes animation and live action, which is an important aesthetic element in the movies I make. When I was twenty I had a short at the London Film Festival, and I was there with my friend so we were traveling from party to party, drinking and eating, because we didn’t have any money. At one party we saw Terry Gilliam, and I started talking to this woman about seeing Baron Munchausen and how it made me want to make movies, and she said, “Well, my husband is Terry Gilliam, you should go say hello to him.” So I went over to him and said, “I just need you to know that I’m here because you made me want to make movies,” and he said, “I’m so sorry.”"

"It was the first classical music where it really sounded aggressive and almost punky. I just love the formalism of it, and even when I think about it, I get shivers. It really sort of does something to me that other music doesn't. I just love the way there's no drums and bass, it's just a lot of people going at it really rhythmically and beautifully arranged. Also, the harpsichord is right. The first time I heard the music was on the Peter Greenaway film of the same name, and that would have been maybe 1989. I remember thinking the film was mental, but I really liked the music! Obviously he did a few others of Greenaway's, and they're all fabulous of course, especially Prospero's Books. It was fun to meet him [The Divine Comedy played with the Michael Nyman Band at the 1997 Edinburgh Festival]. He was a wild man, as they say over here. He certainly knows his own mind. He'd spend the rehearsals with his headphones on listening for Crystal Palace's results and trying to flirt with the cello player, and I love his spectacles, he's always got a good range of eyewear!"

"I saw this at Helsinki’s Love and Anarchy Film Festival, only missed the beginning of the film, and had to leave early to present my own film at another cinema. This was just a great debut. Really stripped down and honest without the frills and trappings that often come with first film insecurity. I was completely immersed in the couple’s predicament and to my shameful ignorance, there was so much I didn’t know about IVF prior to seeing the film. I’d only seen Josh O’Connor in “God’s Own Country,” but he was just as believable and brilliant in “Only You,” and Laia Costa completely pulled me into the depths of her frustrations. It was also great to see not only a European character in a British film, but also a European played by a European rather than a Brit putting on an accent, which is still often the case. I wonder how that will pan out after Brexit. I had to leave the cinema when the protagonists had a row towards its final minutes and still don’t know or want to know how it ended until I watch it again."