"Often, when I read filmmakers’ lists (including mine), I am frustrated by the absence of their contemporaries. The present is always the hardest to read, and no one will argue if you focus on masters of the past instead. But here are a few names, filmmakers whose work I have been lucky to follow since their beginnings; we’ve crossed paths, more or less frequently, but I have admired them constantly, also because they have been an inspiration. I feel I have had a dialogue with them, or with their films, and it is reflected in my own work. Edward Yang is gone, I miss him a lot, he invented modern Chinese cinema alongside Hou Hsiao-hsien, he was my friend."

"Often, when I read filmmakers’ lists (including mine), I am frustrated by the absence of their contemporaries. The present is always the hardest to read, and no one will argue if you focus on masters of the past instead. But here are a few names, filmmakers whose work I have been lucky to follow since their beginnings; we’ve crossed paths, more or less frequently, but I have admired them constantly, also because they have been an inspiration. I feel I have had a dialogue with them, or with their films, and it is reflected in my own work. Edward Yang is gone, I miss him a lot, he invented modern Chinese cinema alongside Hou Hsiao-hsien, he was my friend."

"Ray Harryhausen is another inspiration to me. He did it all himself, too, you know, in the days when it was difficult to do that. In his characters — even the things that had no character — you could feel an artist at work there. You could feel his hand in it, and that’s rare, in any kind of film. His acting was better than the acting of the humans. It really tapped in to what I like about movies, I mean, the fantasy but also that handmade element, when you can see the movement of the characters — it’s like Frankenstein or Pinocchio, taking an inanimate object and having it come to life. That’s why I still like to do stop-motion projects."