I wanted to know. I asked a lot of questions and she would say, "Read, read."…So she inspired me a great deal.

Number two I’d say to young people, be curious.

I still regularly read New Scientist to try to keep up with quantum theory and cosmological discoveries and so forth. And I read National Geographic—that’s not a plug.

My answer may have surprised some in attendance at the meeting: I don’t have a role model or sensei. Or to be more precise, I don’t have a single teacher. Instead, I take it upon myself to learn from everyone around me. If we open our eyes, we may find that everyone can be our teacher.

But I need to show my work during the process. In the editing room, very often I invite friends and I do some test screenings with friends or people I know: editors, journalists sometimes. I ask them, Is it boring? Is it too long? What do you think?

Very often I do a first [draft] and I give it to friends. I ask them to read it, to give me their suggestions; what they think, what they understand, what works or not for them. I work again and again, and I don’t stop working until the shoot. And very often during the shoot, I change the script.

No. You don't have to have rules. If you have rules—you know in cinema you have to be very pragmatic.

It’s a long journey, you know. I really believe in the work of the unconscious. You have an idea, you think about it. You dream about it. But, for me, it’s my way of working, it depends on writing of course. I don’t need to go every day in front of my computer and write something. It’s always a surprise. In the moment, it’s a necessity. You need to write, so you write a thing.

I just want to go on walking, you know? I like to continue my work of movies and just go on with the capacity and opportunity to do exactly what I want. To stay free.

I think they have no duty. But we do have the opportunity, not to change the world, but to make people think differently.