Quotes

[on her favorite co-stars ] I had a wonderful experience recently, working with the Hungarian, [György] Cserhalmi because we didn't talk at all, we were like two Indians in the wilderness, which was great for our work, but that was an exceptional situation. I also love working with Tatiana Dyková, but that's anything but a quiet experience!

[on the current state of Czech cinema] I think we have one wonderful and very exceptional thing, which is quite rare in Europe, because Czech people love Czech cinema, very much - they absolutely adore it. Percentage-wise, if a movie is made in the Czech Republic and it's like a club movie, not mainstream or big-budget, so it still gets like 200,000 viewers. And if you compare that to Germany for example, that would mean like two or four million viewers. But there, the same type of movie gets even less people, like 40,000 viewers. I was just speaking about this with a producer from Germany, who said we have an amazing situation. If the market here was bigger, we would be very, very successful with movies - you know, big movies, lots of money for them - but there aren't many Czech people, so we can't make big movies and big business. We are exceptional in this kind of nationalistic feeling for Czech movies. Czech people, we love Czech cinema. Last year there was I think like 25 movies, which is the most since the Velvet Revolution - 25 movies a year, for such a small country. Not all of them are nice or good, but it's amazing. It never stopped. In the film business in the Czech Republic, we say, you know, 'it's bad, it's boring, blah blah blah', but we never stopped.

[on international stars] I think Johnny Depp has a special status. He's popular both in Europe and the States. He can make independent and intellectual movies while the same time he was the Walt Disney Studios biggest box office draw ever in "Pirates of the Caribbean". That's quite an exceptional position to be in. He's not really my type, he's too short, but I admire his qualities.

[on the possibility of finding challenging projects by Czech filmmakers] That would be if they would start doing something personal. Something risky, putting their souls into the movies, not thinking 'let's do it like this and that to make a movie that will be successful', or 'let's make a clever movie, let's make a beautiful movie', but if they would say 'I want to do this movie because I just have to; I have to make a movie about what I feel, or what happened to me'. I feel like Czech movies are very artificial, they don't come out of what people real feel. They could even be more silly or risk more in any way: artistically, in terms of the script... To me they are very conservative.

[on working abroad] It's not about heading west or east. Anywhere. My favourite cinematography is Scandinavian, that's a place where I would love to do some movies. Or Poland, Hungary, anywhere, just to, you know, feel different vibes.