You can't just express yourself and it becomes a movie. You have to get beyond that.
— Zal Batmanglij
Claustrophobia is a theme that I feel is really rife in 'Sound of my Voice' and struggling to come up for air from that feeling.
That's the beauty of filmmaking: it's extremely humbling because you do it all over again all the time.
I think about a lot of my favorite directors, and I think about their first films, and I have great admiration for the earthiness of those films.
Sarah Polley's 'Stories We Tell,' James Ponsoldt's 'The Spectacular Now,' Destin Daniel Cretton's 'Short Term 12' - these are really important movies.
I like how collaborative and cult-like filmmaking is. It's really family-oriented, tribe-oriented.
I'm a gay man of colour.
The first time I ever tried edamame, I thought it was gross. I didn't understand the hairy skin. It didn't taste good to me. Now I scarf down a bowl of edamame when I sit down at a restaurant, and I don't think twice about it.
We lived on anarchist farms, squatted in the inner city, and hopped rail cars. We wanted to see how other young people were creating meaning from their lives.
Nobody can seem more politicised and glamorous than the baby-boomers. But their kids are surprisingly robust and late bloomers.
On 'Sound of My Voice,' I was the first and last word, which is kind of a dictatorship. I like collectives, though.
I love James Cameron. I love what he does.
I remember being a kid, I was a little kid when my dad took me to 'Munchausen.' I guess he took my whole family, but I kind of didn't want to go for some reason. Then we got there, and I was so mesmerized by the movie, and I was really taken by the young Sarah Polley. I didn't realize until many, many years later that it was Sarah Polley.
We would meet truck drivers, and they were like, ''Orange Is the New Black' is my favorite show.' And we're like, 'What? This looks like a Red State, Trump-voting guy, and he loves 'Orange Is the New Black?'' I think that's the power of storytelling.
You just have to make sure you keep living your life, challenging yourself, putting yourself in unusual experiences, thinking about what you're interested in doing, and going there.
I think if aliens came to Earth, we would laugh. If there was an alien technology, we would laugh.
If you really want to have an anarchist experience, make a movie with a studio.
It's not easy to learn to trust someone and let someone trust you.
I think we have to go through a lot of rituals in order to fill the gap of meaning in our lives.
I'm very fascinated by genre.
I love being on a movie set.
I remember in grade school having a group of friends and enjoying that sense of community, enjoying living in an imaginary world that wasn't just by yourself or your sibling but a whole group of people.
'Sound of My Voice' had been written before 'Another Earth.'
Marvel's storytelling is much wilder than 'The OA's,' but no one talks about that.
Group think and groups in general allow you to more fully give yourself to something other than yourself and your betterment - to feel a sense of belonging. Now is this a good thing? I don't know, but it's something that is longed for, at least by me.
The best dumpster meal I has was the first one I had.
Whatever you think of Edward Snowden, it took bravery to do what he did.
When I was 17, I grew from being something like 5'2'' to 6 foot - I grew a lot - and I don't remember growing... I feel like the same thing is true of writing. You're waiting for Santa Claus to come down the chimney, but you just fall asleep at some point, and then the magic happens.
I thought 'Gone Baby Gone' was really modern in showing a couple going on an adventure.
Existing outside of irony is so hard.
The art house is an elitist idea.
I hate Q&As. They make me feel awkward.
You think it's so cool to have movie stars in your movie, but they become people.
It's so hard to shoot wealth. It doesn't show up on film.
A novel is both a story and a piece of writing. A movie is a story and a piece of filmmaking.
I think that 'Sound of My Voice' is about the claustrophobia of living today, and how do you crawl out of the claustrophobia towards the light?
When I was 14, I saw 'Terminator 2.' My mind was blown. What a beautiful movie. I found it really deep and also so entertaining.
Any director who's willing to be brave not only in terms of subject matter but also in terms of being emotional and moving you is what inspires me.
I always think that 'Sound of My Voice' is a movie about the crumbs in 'Hansel and Gretel.' You know, those crumbs. It's about finding your way out of the claustrophobia and alienation of modern life.
Violence doesn't interest me very much.
I think if there's anything 2016 has taught me, it's that we have a real hard time with women in our society; we have a hard time with the feminine.
What I'm drawn to most as a filmmaker are these tribes that are seen as 'fringe' cultures. We live in a society where many young people feel alienated, and these family constructs are an antidote to that.
The country gets so beat up in the media. It's worth remembering how much we love America.
'The East' could easily be a TV show.
At AFI, you make three cycle films your first year, and then you make a thesis film your second year, and I watched Darren Aronofsky's cycle films and was blown away - there was a young Lucy Liu, who was just part of that generation. And I just wanted to be part of that tradition.
'The Terminator' is grounded in so much realism. It's again a story that centers around a woman that isn't a 'woman's picture' necessarily. I found it really thrilling, both 'Terminator 1' and '2.' When you watch it it's such fine storytelling.
It's funny how you never know who you're going to share your life with.
We entered 'Lucid Grey' into the Georgetown festival on April 27, 2001. Now 'Sound of My Voice' is opening on April 27, 11 years later. It couldn't have happened in a more perfectly cinematic way.
I think disparaging something you don't understand, while a very normal thing - I expect more from serious people.
It's awesome to be part of a gay family.
