Q; How do you deal with actors and how do you see the future of Cinema?
A: The future of cinema will be influenced by 3 factors:
How technology will affect the future of cinema?
How to save the cinema from total commercialisation?
How to preserve cinema from the film majors who are against freedom of thought and culture and how to retain our connections with the past and to preserve our vision of freedom from technology? Otherwise cinema will end up like opera is today. There will be a few cinemas in city centres to remind us of what cinema used to be. The kind of insights we used to have into aesthetics and creativity are being stiffled by the blockbuster. To answer your first question the actors I get on with are the ones who may not necessarily be the big professionals but are willing to find fulfillment in what they are doing when working on my films. My films take time , sometimes 7 months to make. There are some professional friends who are well known actors who do work with me on these terms one of them is Johnny Depp who is a great friend. I am looking for actors who make the film part of their life.

There is a danger that new technology will win overall control because of the money involved. A Video game recently grossed US$ 370 million CNN said this was a little bit aggressive but unless left unchecked technology like this will drive cinema into a dead end with films being available on mobile phones.

Q: If you were going to remake a British film casting Johnny Depp which would it be?
A: There are many good British films, I think it would have to be "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning" with Johnny Depp because it was a time of growing social and cultural awareness and existenialism.

Q: If you were to make a film like this would you take the same approach as with "Underground"?
A: "Underground " came from an anecdote taking place within between wars, it projected Serbia to the outside world and conveyed the reality of the conflict in Serbia itself. The media prides itself on being the one sending the message , " Underground" conveys what is in the mind of those whose lives are manipulated and the mind of the manipulator.

I have a village in the mountains in Serbia where I teach and I met a man and asked him : "Do you have any morality ?" Despite all the centuries of effort in European society to create morality as a reference point. He didn't understand what I meant.Next day I asked him "Could you tell me what is your definition of morality? In Serbia we can play word games by adding something at the end of the word to change its meaning, but he could still not answer the question.

Q: How do you see Moroccan, African and Arab cinema in the context of standing up to big business?
A: I believe this film festival and others like it with this ambience help to preserve cinema and the reality of cinema as it is today. Southern countries recognising the essence and impotance of cinema like Moroco is indeed a welcome development. This will result in a wave of good young directors who create great cinema.

Q: The topic of exile appears frequently in your films. How important is this to you?

Exile doesn't have to be with you for life. The concept of a new European military order following the collapse of communism has made the old Yugoslavia a victim of Germany, the US and the Vatican. It was destroyed as a country. It had a completely different life from Europe and has now become the victim of the new European order. It was less communist and the gypsies and other ethnic groups lived together, it was a good life and the difference now has affected me. I am tempremental and an advernturist and I need to find new steps to climb and new ideas. i grew up with the gypsies and the connection of their culture with Latin American literature fascinates me. I am carrying trhe baggage of my youth with me and someone described my style as "Shakespeare wrtitten by the Marx brothers". I have the energy to confront diffreent challenges.

Q: What are your impressions of Morocco?
A: Morocco is like one of the great films in cinema the beginning and end of a beautiful friendship. It is like the time when the jewish filmakers moved to Hollywood and had a great welcome from everyone.and great films were made. This pioneering spirit is now possible in Morocco.

Q: There is a master class to morrow , how do you teach?
A: This is why the call me professor! Sometimes people find me boring because I always want to explain. I teach at Columbia University and in Serbia. It is a good time to talk about cinema as regards the threee factors affecting the cinema which I talked about at the beginning and we have to fight media dirty tricks which supress the truth

Q: You are also a musician and have a band which played at the Rabat Wazzam, what does this mean to you?
A: We perform concerts because our music is strongly influenced by Arabic music and internationalm music.We made the audience happy in Rabat but the need to reach a wider audience is what connects the musician and the director . He can see and hear the film and has a vision of it. Fellini remareked on the closeness of music and film.

Q: how has Baroque influenced you?
A: Baroque is sometimes used as an insult as if the director is avoiding the "cool" movies trend with minimalist settings. Sergio Leone one of the best baroque directors never received an award. There are different influences and styles , Shakesperian tragic content or the Marx brothers! Life is complicated by many factors political and social. One of my films is about the marriage of a serbian man with a musilim woman, you have to reflect your heritage.

Q: When you are faced with a new project what are the things which trigger your reactions?
A:I always react with temper i am an artist who needs to be intrigued and attracted by impulse- I have been very lucky in this respect. During the last stages of Fellini's life he found difficulties in getting financing for his films, it is not easy to finance films but thankfully I have been lucky and my films have not been difficult to finance. To me it is not the money but rather the capacity of the project, it is a matter of what happens in the market.

Q: Is there any interference between your role as musician and director?
A: Only in respect of the fact that music has a more precise number of beats. What he hears and sees is deeply routed in the director's creativity . He closes his eyes and sees every detail of the movie and hears the music. However I enjoye dplaying with Zenith in Paris being with an orchestra is a responsibility but is not such a heavy responsibility as being the director of a film.