I think in Germany it is getting worse because there are only a few distributors who handle films which are not strictly commercially orientated, and some of them are giving up or are being bought by big companies who then turn them into a department for art films. But these art films are not the same art films that were distributed before. Jim Jarmusch is an art film for them, and for me it is not an art film any more, for example. I think he is much more commercial than the films which they were dealing with before they got bought up. These art films they show are already accepted in the commercial market, and not much different from it - just smaller budgets. They don't have a different form, for example, or difficult subjects. (...) I think the situation that I have described is very bad and very difficult, but I think it would be worse if filmmakers gave up. So, this comes back to your first question, if I was a pessimist, I would give up immediately, because the situation is so horrifying and depressing that any normal reasonable person would give up and not start making films. So that is why I think it is a very optimistic attitude to make a film which is not just commercially orientated. I think it is worth doing because film is a very young art, just 100 years old, and it would be so sad if it would die so young. I think it is the most beautiful thing that this century has invented. It shouldn't be given up and thrown away or lost to the industry or to something like the market or the capitalist ideal. [1999]
