Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I don't drink coffee.
I'm not a war reporter.
I barely speak Spanish.
Bombs are not going to fix ISIS.
My job is to generate discussion.
We as a society need to become healthier.
I'm so grateful to be part of the Sundance family.
I think health care is incredibly, incredibly important.
We have a disease care system, not a health care system.
It's hard making people sitting in hotel rooms interesting.
I fell in love with Mexico. I fell in love with the people.
I have faith in an audience being able to interpret complex material.
Sound is the most important thing on any film, especially documentaries.
You can't win a battle against an idea with bombs, with guns, or militarily.
I was fascinated by what motivates men and women to fight for what they believe in.
Growing up in the digital age of filmmaking, I'm as guilty as anyone of overshooting.
Just like with America, there are many Americas, and there are many different Mexicos.
ISIS is an idea. And we have to fight this idea with the same tools that they're using.
I love the challenge of taking these really complicated subjects and trying to humanise them.
So much of the access that I was able to gain with the Autodefensas was over months, not days.
I think in 'Escape Fire,' we really look at the military as a microcosm for the rest of America.
I found out I wanted to be a filmmaker almost by accident after graduating from college in 2005.
Too often, we rely on other people - whether it be politicians or institutions - to effect change.
The amount of money that's being put into long-form investigative journalism has become less and less.
Hospitals should be paid to keep patients out of the hospital, not for signing up more and more patients.
There's a wide range of motivations that led folks to patrol the border, to be part of Arizona Border Recon.
I was fascinated by what happens when government institutions fail and citizens take the law into their own hands.
When you are part of a cartel, you don't have a Costco card that says, 'I'm a card-carrying member of the cartel.'
I want to move people to think and ponder the question of their own healthcare. And it doesn't need to be political thinking.
'Cartel Land' seeks to give voice to the people of Mexico who suffer grievous harm from cartel violence and government corruption.
I almost obsessively began reading about what was happening with the so-called Islamic State. But I couldn't find an angle on the story.
Health care has become a political football that is being tossed back and forth by both sides in Washington. And it's divided our country.
Health is the one thing we all have in common regardless of race, creed, or income. Everyone should participate in creating the solutions.
I think we as a society, a global community, we as governments, need to figure out ways to combat ISIS, not just as a military force but as an idea.
The story is supposed to change; it's supposed to evolve. In making 'Cartel Land,' I ended up with a much, much different story than I started with.
We mainly shot 'Cartel Land' with the Canon C300. The camera was dropped, smashed, hit by guns, in dust storms, torrential rain, and it never, ever failed.
If you're going to see 'City of Ghosts' because you want to understand everything about the Syrian conflict and how to fix it, then it's the wrong film to see.
My favorite way of making films - and what has allowed me to get key scenes in 'Cartel Land' and 'City of Ghosts' - has been when I've been able to operate alone.
The story of everyday people rising up to fight against evil to protect their families - it's a story that we've seen play out throughout history and across the world today.
It's going to take each of us coming together to muster the strength to look in the mirror and ask, 'How can I help create a sustainable health care system for the 21st century?'
'Cartel Land' explores what happens when - in a Mexican society without order, law or security - vendettas, terror, and corruption go hand in hand with the pursuit of a better world.
I think one of the major themes in 'Escape Fire,' really, if you break it down, is that huge institutions, the military, the Safeway Corporation and others, are being forced to change.
My dad sent me a clipping about the self-defence militias in Mexico. Immediately, when I read it, I knew I wanted to create a parallel story about vigilantes on both sides of the border.
There's this fascination in America that more is better: we want that procedure. And more is not necessarily better when it comes to health care. We as consumers really need to understand that.
At medical centers such as the Cleveland Clinic and Kaiser Permanente, teams of doctors and nurses provide coordinated care while working for salary instead of getting paid for every procedure.
In my humble opinion, propaganda is one of the most evil tools humans have used against humans throughout history to justify wars, justify atrocities, justify evil. ISIS has taken it to a new extreme.
Sundance is incredible and has been very important for my career as a filmmaker, but it's also not the only route to success. There are a ton of great movies that don't get in and go on and do wonderfully.
I landed a job at HBO, working for two years on the 'The Alzheimer's Project,' which aired in May 2009. I was fortunate to work with a great mentor, producer John Hoffman, and the amazing doc filmmaker Susan Froemke.
For 'City of Ghosts,' I really didn't speak any Arabic. It obviously made it more difficult, but I also found it to be an advantage while shooting. It allowed me to focus on the emotion of the scene as opposed to just chasing dialogue.
With newspapers cutting foreign bureaus and budgets shrinking for long-form, investigative journalism, documentary filmmakers are often filling a void nowadays in the media landscape with their ability to spend time with their stories and subjects.