I'm getting a little bored by the juxtaposition of American and other cinema. I no longer think this division is as true as it might have been in the 1980s, or the early part of the 90s.

Filmmakers and critics wrote about each other and sometimes very harshly. This no longer exists.

But I think that the spirit of protectionism would be the grave of European cinema. You cannot protect something by building a fence around it and thinking that this will help it survive.

At the moment it is much more unknown to me here than in the American west, which I know quite well now -- much better than Saxony, Mecklenburg or even Bavaria.

For us music is mainly part of the entertainment world and is often a luxury.

Of course the French are making very credible movies and it is still one of the greatest nations in terms of world cinema but the real problem is the decay in film criticism.