"Joanna Hogg is one of my favourite directors and I love this film because it explores what it’s like to be an artist. It’s based around the idea that this couple is going to be moving out of their house and that the house somewhat represents their relationship. It’s very poetic and slow-moving. What’s really interesting is the sound design, because Joanna doesn’t use any music, she uses the sound of the traffic outside or the sound of the trees instead. It really adds to the drama and feels like you’re capturing a real moment."

"Ella Fitzgerald - I love her voice! She's very strong, she's beautiful. The words are so poetic, the image of the blue moon. I like to listen to those women [Nina, Billie and Ella] because they're very relaxed when they sing. At the same time, there's something boiling inside. I recognise myself in them because when you listen to my records, I'm a very relaxed girl, very simple. But behind all that kindness, behind the soft voice, there's something very heavy. I'm still in love with this feeling. They've got the real blues - the blues voice, feeling and soul."

"Kiarostami’s film opened a door wide open to a different kind of filmmaking. It’s playful, humane, deeply respectful and ethical—completely alive. The scene where Sabzian interrupts his own trial, which was re-created for the film, to explain why he did what he did, is extraordinary, and the final freeze-frame is enormously moving. I feel inspired by Kiarostami’s practice. He jumped onto this project in the middle of making another film, and he turns the exigencies of filmmaking to his own poetic advantage (like when the sound drops out during the final motorbike ride)."

"When I got into documentaries in the mid-eighties, I discovered how you could not just observe but also sculpt reality. This is when I fell in love with the Czech New Wave. So Forman, Passer, Nemec. My favorite film from that era is probably Loves of a Blonde, which looks at the world without an agenda, rhetoric, or plot mechanics, but with lots of empathy and irony. It shows that if you have a good sense of casting and know where to put the camera and when not to cut, the most ordinary things can be lifted into something poetic and timeless."