"I wonder if a little kid is watching that movie, is it scary? Because when the kids get shot with the pie or whatever, they disappear, they don't come back, you're dead. I love the sound of all the songs, and the songwriting is amazing - it's just one of those perfect combinations of songwriting and production, and I think he sings all the songs. That's what gives the film its unique tone, because it could be this soupy Disney-style exploitation of the innocence of a child's voice, but it's this grown man, and you fully buy into the reality of the setting. Sure it's a send up of the Prohibition-era gangster genre but you can watch the scene of the guy singing 'Tomorrow' and start weeping - it's just so real. And you've got the little girl dancing around doing her ballet, it gives you shivers. And it's a very dark movie, it kind of looks like The Godfather, very darkly lit. Jodie Foster is amazing - she's like one of the best child actors of all time. I think that a great musical has its moments of hilarity and then also moments of deep sadness, pathos. I think we probably veered too far on the dark side with our musical."

"I adore Fassbinder’s work. I’ve been living in Germany for the last ten years, and I think he’s one of the biggest reasons I moved there. Ali: Fear Eats the Soul is my favorite film of all time. It’s the kind of film I’d never think of making—I’d never have thought of those two protagonists as a possible couple—but it’s the most beautiful and yet political film I’ve ever seen. When I was growing up, I never thought that I’d be able to make movies, but I began to learn by discovering films that were made in a way that was very technically simple yet powerful in terms of character, which is what you see in Ali. I come from an Algerian family that emigrated to France in the seventies, so there is something about the character of Ali in particular, and the empathy that the older woman has for him, that touched me. There’s also something about the way Fassbinder depicts sadness that I love and find refreshing. I absolutely adore In a Year of 13 Moons, Fox and His Friends, and Querelle, which made me feel the world differently. I didn’t feel so alone; I felt there were other people who were like me."