The preparation of the film was very complex, uncertain. We soon realized that filming in those regions would be difficult, even dangerous. The production had to obtain authorizations from practically everybody: The Lebanese army, UNIFIL (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon), Hezbollah, Israel (through Unifil), the French embassy¬Ö Making the film therefore became one of the stakes of the story.

I was inspired to make “Rachel Getting married” very much by my love for the films of Robert Altman, and by other American movies that choose to take an approach that departs from reliable and time-honored ideas about how to fashion story and style in an effort to move the audience–Jonathan Demme

Robert De Niro and Al Pacino hold a unique place in the collective imagination. Known for their intensity and unforgettable performances in some of the grittiest, most respected urban dramas of the past 30 years, until now the Oscar-winning actors have shared only a few minutes of screen time. Righteous Kill marks the first time audiences will see them together in almost every scene of a movie.

I loved and admired Bohumil Hrabal’s writing from the moment I discovered it. But it was never my wish to bring to the screen a mere illustration of his epic stories. Instead, I attempted to express and preserve, as best I could, the spirit of Hrabal’s narrative style and interpret his voice through the language of film.

In his two most recent films, director Wayne Wang returns to the themes that have distinguished his career and helped define the possibilities of personal cinema. “Thousand Years of Good Prayers” and “The Princess of Nebraska” mark the seventh and eighth of his Asian-themed films that explore the bonds of family and Chinese identity in the modern world made over the last 25 years. These make up one of the largest bodies of introspective work in independent film.