I've lost count of the plane tickets I've had in my pocket for people's weddings and other celebrations which I've had to tear up because I was making a film. How many things like that can you miss and still be in people's lives?
— Beeban Kidron
A white woman with a camera in the Devadasi belt of Karnataka is not inconspicuous... it took time for these women to believe that I was not an official, carrying the threat of fine and imprisonment.
Girls from poor families of the 'untouchable,' or lower, caste are 'married' to Yellamma as young as four. No longer allowed to marry a mortal, they are expected to bestow their entire lives to the service of the goddess.
I've always been interested in exploring difficult subjects for the mainstream.
I hope that every film I make has something to offer in the area of making people feel either vindicated or different in terms of who they are.
There's something about actors - not stars, but actors - if they have the character, and someone is pushing and shoving them to be the best they can be, they enjoy that.
What is the point of teaching how to analyse a poem or a piece of Shakespeare but not to analyse the Internet?
The thing that upsets me is the ubiquitous use of reward technology, which uses our evolutionary biology against us.
The thing about documentary is that you don't really choose your subjects: they come and grab you out of your bed.
On telly, there's been a move towards entertainment - with some very high-powered, fast-moving dramas. Then we have the Internet, where we get our information but it's all in bite-size pieces. I think the documentary, as a form, actually speaks to what's missing.
The Internet has crept up on us, and we need to know what it is and start looking at it. We have to decide which bits we want, which bits we don't, and how we're going to use them - and how we're going to put pressure on the people who deliver these goods to deliver what we really want.
We think that there is this terrible idea that the kids are digital natives... and they know what they're doing, but all the evidence says that they're hanging around going, 'Where are you, I'm here, can I post my picture?' They're not actually writing wikis; they're not actually listening to great poets live.
Vittorio De Sica famously made 'Bicycle Thieves'; that's the film of his everybody knows.
Our children, manipulated to become exemplary consumers, increasingly admit they do not feel 'in control' of their own Internet use.
The Greenham women left home for peace: 'Not in our name!' they cried. And in doing so, they spoke for millions.
We now have powerful technology, which allows us a voice across boundaries, which was unimaginable at the time of the Greenham Protest, a protest that pre-dates the Internet and the mobile phone.
Unfortunately, teatime in London is when people in Los Angeles arrive in their offices and pick up the phone.
Not many young women of my age have been lucky enough to have had a wonderful mentor in their life.
The devadasis have a multilayered story, a story in which poverty, deprivation and injustice against women is central - but what has happened to them is absolutely an outcome of imperialism and the impact of British rule in India.
Each January, nearly half a million people visit the small town of Saundatti for ajatre or festival, to be blessed by Yellamma, the Hindu goddess of fertility.
This is a culture filled with perfect images of women and perfect images of movie actresses, and most people can't live up to them.
I've liked being Jewish in America - there's a secular version of Jewishness there that's more about bagels and jokes than going to synagogues.
I like the accidental nature of being in the real world.
There is nothing wrong with Facebook in itself, except that it is not a very good tool to express the quality of your relationships.
I often go out on the street with my camera and ask questions.
If you look where kids are spending time on the Net, they may have all the information in the world, but they're not accessing it.
I think the documentary is something that people are hungry for, that it embodies careful thought, nuance.
I love text, I love email, I love Skype; I think it's amazing.
We have allowed a situation to develop in which it is legal for a multibillion dollar industry to own, wholly and in perpetuity, the intimate and personal details of children.
I am still cautiously hopeful about the potential of the Internet. But it seems that the greatest revolution in communication has been hijacked by commercial values.
The devices that our kids use are shipped from the factory with every possible audio, visual or vibration alert switched on. Each new app, website, tweet and message adds another layer of intrusion - each intrusion is cynically designed to get a response, and each response creates an appetite for another intrusion.
Arguably, it was the introduction of international non-proliferation treaties in the late '80s that finally led to the missiles being removed from Greenham Common.
If we don't record our own history on the Net, it will disappear.
During my 'difficult teens,' I read about worlds that were mysterious.
When I was 13, I had a weekend job at the Photographers Gallery Bookshop in London.
I absolutely don't want to suggest that women are unreliable because we're mothers - on the contrary. But the question of who brings up the kids has a material effect on all women's careers.
Everything serious in the world is well approached by humour. It's a powerful and often quite subversive tool. I suppose there is an argument that could be made against me for being frivolous, but I do think a laugh is a very generous thing to give.
We need to be much more robust consumers.
I've discovered my Jewishness late in life. And I've really enjoyed exploring that world.
I love being in real life, and in particular, I like being with young people.
Sometimes you have to put back in the community.
I'm in the communications business.
I had a sort of classic moment when a friend of mine rang up and said she'd just been to a funeral, and in the middle of the eulogy, this kid had taken out the phone and had a whole proper text conversation - while everyone was weeping!
Our politicians don't say anything anymore: they just refute and assert.
I want to talk about privacy, the quality of the information you receive, whether it's neutral or commercial or pointed, bringing consciousness to the lack of neutrality in the algorithms.
At 99 and after a long stay in a nursing home, the death of legendary photographer Eve Arnold was hardly a surprise - though she may have been just a little annoyed to quit a few months short of 100.
Everything a teenager does, says or looks at, however transitory, contributes to an aggregated virtual self that might one day have consequences for its real-life counterpart. How many of us would keep all our relationships and reputations intact if every transgression, mistake or youthful folly was held in public view?
For most women, Greenham was a place of principle, growth and song. Often joyful, sometimes terrifying, and almost always cold. As it got harder, with constant evictions and mounting violence from a frustrated and humiliated police force, the women got more determined. It was a community with a shared purpose - to live in peace.
In 1982, fellow film student Amanda Richardson and I went to Greenham Common for the day - to see what was going on and to shoot some video. The day turned into a weekend, the weekend into seven months, and the dozens of hours of footage turned into a film - 'Carry Greenham Home.'
The previous generation paved the way for my generation to gallop unheeded into jobs previously reserved for men.
