Allison Anders

I don't believe you ever get closure on anything. Things leave a permanent mark on you.

When I wanted to become a filmmaker, there was nobody for me to look up to.

I think that with the success of, like, VH1's 'Behind The Music' and stuff like that, ...
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While we can work hard at improving our health, size is no more in our control ...
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Unless it's something very clever like 'Memento,' most independent films have a very tough life out ...
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Before, I just don't think we knew how much music was out there, now with MySpace, it's really opened it up. Filmmakers have so much more choice.

Box office is one of the strongest tools we have toward preserving our ability to make our movies. We really can make a difference by purchasing a ticket each opening weekend to a movie made by a woman, even if you don't like the movie or the filmmaker and even if you don't see the film.

Do we have to be rail thin to possess 'outer beauty' and sex appeal and to be capable of attracting lovers?

During the '90s, a lot of us in the indie film world were not making our money off our movies. We were screenwriters doing scripts for hire for studios.

I don't believe you ever get closure on anything. Things leave a permanent mark on you.

For me, the most exciting thing is that Jane Campion is a woman we can all really look up to. She doesn't have the body of work that some other directors do - no woman director does - but her work is so consistently original, wonderful, masterful.

I had breast cancer. I caught it early.

I don't know that movies are important. But I know that stories are important. Movies may disappear. They've only been around, for God's sake, for the last hundred years... I think that it's the need to tell stories, and that people need to be told stories. It's the old sitting around the fire, you know.

I think that with the success of, like, VH1's 'Behind The Music' and stuff like that, the fact that it's so successful, it's clear that people are interested in rock lives.

I hope the next actress offered millions to play the 'fat girl for the day' stops to think about this before she signs the contract - even if just to ask, like any professional actress would in any other situation, 'Why does she weigh 350 pounds? And why me for the part?' If the director can't answer these questions, don't do the movie.

In the early '90s when the American independent movie started, it held personal vision as a premium. That was brilliant timing.

I think when I got drawn to film, I didn't know it was a business. I mean, like most filmmakers, I probably saw more films than a lot of people when I was a kid. But I watched them on TV as well. I was no purist about it. I spent lots of time in movie theaters, but I also watched a lot of films on TV.

I'd be just as happy being a midwife. That's my ideal job.

Movies can tell us about our place, or lack of place, in our culture.

Nothing feels worse than knowing that people didn't see your movie. That they wanted to and the critics loved it but nobody knew where it was because it didn't do what it was supposed to do opening weekend. It used to be that independents were allowed to stay in the theaters, build word of mouth.

The first thing I did for TV was a pilot for CBS.

Roman Polanski is one of my favorite filmmakers, and John Phillips one of my favorite songwriters. I had the honor to meet each of these men and was almost giddy to be blessed with the chance to tell each artist what his work meant has to me.

Nowadays you don't get to see composition in a movie because nobody ever keeps the camera still long enough to see it. Actors don't have the thrill and the power of working with space.

Trauma creates one of four types of people: victims, rescuers, or perps - and if you're really lucky and really strong and very willing and brave, survivors.

This practice of skinny actresses donning fat suits is essentially the new and acceptable blackface in Hollywood.

Unless it's something very clever like 'Memento,' most independent films have a very tough life out there.

When I wanted to become a filmmaker, there was nobody for me to look up to.

While we can work hard at improving our health, size is no more in our control than the color of our skin, our ethnicity, or our sexual preference.

When you're traumatized, you pick out one thing you remember more than anything else.

You end up giving up half your salary every time you make a movie because you need the money to make the movie you have in your head.

You still get the movies made. A filmmaker can always scrape up money to do a movie. The passion drives it. And you'll get the money. Money's the easiest thing. But the hardest thing is finding a way for people to see your movie.