A Quote by Anna D. Shapiro

I am a director because I believe in my own impulses and my own point of view, and that belief encourages me to tell stories that will move, provoke, and change people. But I became a director because I wanted to be a part of the world.
When I went to Jamia, I thought I wanted to be a cinematographer or photographer because I liked telling stories in pictures, but my teachers explained that if you want to tell your own stories then that is what a director does.
A lot of times I don't know if I trust the director to tell that film's story. Or I think it's inappropriate for a male director to tell a female story, or a white director to tell a black story. Everyone walks away from a movie differently, because you're relating it to your own life.
As an actor, you have to believe in the point of view of a director; as a director, you have to be able to express what your point of view is and invite everybody to join you on that journey. So it's always about opening up.
I wanted to be a director first to protect my writing. I'm a playwright and you don't need to protect your writing when you're in the theater because everyone's there to protect the writing. When I had an idea for a film that I really cared about as my own, I wanted to direct it, and then I immediately became interested in directing in and of itself because it's such a deep art. You suddenly have all these tools at your disposal to tell the story.
In America, we have so many movies and so much media about the Islamic world, the sub-continental world, but it's not a conversation, it's a monologue. It's always from one point of view. 'If we don't tell our own stories, no one will tell them' is my mantra.
I became an actress to provoke people and move people and to tell the stories.
I think I'm an extremely conscientious producer and now equally as a director and it gives me the opportunity to look at the entire movie and really allow the movie to be the creative vision of the actors, the writer and myself, because I'm in charge of it from a producer and a director point of view.
Ultimately, a director is a storyteller. I wanted to fortify that part of my life as a director, so I thought the best way to do that is to study and learn about the greatest stories ever written.
Film’s thought of as a director’s medium because the director creates the end product that appears on the screen. It’s that stupid auteur theory again, that the director is the author of the film. But what does the director shoot-the telephone book? Writers became much more important when sound came in, but they’ve had to put up a valiant fight to get the credit they deserve.
I like a director who is very observant and is watching what I'm doing and noticing what I'm doing but is giving me time to figure it out. They don't jump right in and give you a note before you've had time to really search on your own with how to do a scene. I like a director that encourages me to be playful.
I hope that in another way we can move the need to say, instead of being a Black director, or a woman director, or a French director that I'm just a director.
With a director it's all about the work; I'd work with a great director over - you know, I'm not the kind of actor who that doesn't go, 'I want to play this role.' It's more like, 'I want to work with this director,' regardless of what the role is because if it's a good director, you'll probably find a good role because it's a decent film. But a mediocre director will always make a mediocre movie.
'Control' had to do with my own life a lot, and that's why that seemed to be a film I could be the director of, because I had an emotional attachment to the whole story. And because of that experience, I feel that I can try other films. I didn't set out to become a director.
I believe in me, in my view of the world. I believe in my responsibility for my own destiny, guilt for my own sins, merit for my own good deeds, determination of my own life. I don't believe in miracles, I believe in hard work.
I just realized that I need to be a director - for two reasons. One, directors were already my heroes at this point. I wanted to; when I wanted to be an actor I wanted to work with this director. Not work with this actor, I wanted to work for this director.
Becoming a writer, and then a director, was taking my creative life in my own hands, and wanting to have stories that I wanted to put out into the world - and I have fallen in love with directing.
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