Euzhan Palcy

“Oh, the movie, the movie who really confirmed my desire and encouraged me and make me say, "Okay, I am going to be a filmmaker." Black Orpheus, Camus, Marcel Camus. Oh gosh, Marcel Camus, he doesn't know what he did to me when I when I saw that film and I was a young girl in the Caribbean. And that that day the theater was packed and I would never forget, it was so rare to have a movie with Black characters and in positive role roles. So the distributor decided to increase the cost of the ticket because the characters, there was, they were Black, and people were fighting to see that movie. They were so starving to see themselves, people like them on screen. So that man, he said, "Okay, the ticket will be more expensive because there are Black folks on the screen." And people wanted that, and I think that I saw that movie, that story, at least 50 times. Orfeu Negro. Oh, wow. Love it.”

“Yes, yes, yes, Mr. Hitchcock, Alfred, of course. I learned a lot from him. Now, when The Lady Vanishes, yeah. And I remember with my brothers when we were watching a Hitchcock movie like Psycho or others, you know, in fact we used to play a game. We were, I have three brothers and myself, watching the movie and we will try to imagine the who is the villain, who did the coup, what will happen next. And of course we will fail because he was, oh, it was impossible with Hitchcock. He will take you all over the place.”

“Oh, Guillermo del Toro, he's a genius, my dad! Everybody should see his movies, he's great, I love him.”

“I'm happy because very few people, you know, know that movie, The Naked Island. They call it L'Île nue in French, has the same translation. That movie has no dialogues, and the way that that filmmaker told the story with those two characters, a wife, a man and his wife on a boat. They live on an island and then they have they do the crossing to go to town to buy food, water, and all kind of things. And no dialogue, and it's a feature film, and you have to sit there and then you just like, you get into that movie, and not one minute you feel bored.”

“Oh, Guillermo del Toro, he's a genius, my dad! Everybody should see his movies, he's great, I love him.”

“Oh, Guillermo del Toro, he's a genius, my dad! Everybody should see his movies, he's great, I love him.”

“Okay, then The 400 Blows from Truffaut. I was very fortunate to meet Truffaut through his daughter Laura. I was a student in Paris and I was I was working on my first movie, a screenplay, I was writing the screenplay Sugar Cane Alley. And Truffaut read the script, he gave me some advice, and at the end he became my godfather. And when the movie got the best film, the César for Best First Film in Paris, what we will call the French Oscar for Best First Film, Truffaut was there in that room because he was getting the César for his for all his work. And I talk about it with a lot of emotion because he was very sick, and that was the last time they saw him in public because he had a tumor and he died shortly after that.”