Jehane Noujaim Quotes

I'll continue making films because I love being able to drop into other people's worlds. My goal is to be constantly learning.

I think everybody's had that feeling of sitting in a theater, in a dark room, with other strangers, watching a very powerful film, and they felt that feeling of transformation.

When you have an American mother from the Midwest and an Egyptian father, you travel back and forth and see such completely different stories in the news about the exact same events. It makes you think, 'How is anybody able to understand or even have a dialogue when the basis of information is just so completely different?'

I don't know if there's such a thing as objectivity.

I've discovered I can't make a film about people I dislike.

I used to do volunteer work in poor areas of Cairo, and people would gather their money together to get a satellite dish. You'd see them huddling around and for the first time seeing issues being debated on TV that had never been talked about before. And that is the biggest promoter of democracy you could possibly have.

In making films, I'm constantly looking for people who are in conflict and who are going to surprise you and challenge you.

Now, I don't know whether a film can change the world, but I know that it starts - I know the power of it - I know that it starts people thinking about how to change the world.

Al Jazeera is demonized by the United States, yet in Egypt my father would be watching it.

I'm interested in characters that are complex people.

There are these very poor communities on the outskirts of Cairo called Mokattam, where a lot of the garbage collectors live. I used to volunteer there, doing health and education work when I was younger and living in Egypt.

It's important in any project to remain focused.

When I hear the words 'activist filmmaking,' I think of somebody who's an activist, who wants to prove a particular point.

Look at the Civil Rights Movement. Look at any kind of fight for change. People had to keep fighting and taking their rights. Rights are never given to you. They have to be fought for and they have to be taken.

It's incredible to see the creativity, beauty and hardships people capture when filmmaking is opened up and shared with the world.

There are different opinions across the Middle East of Al-Jazeera. They've been kicked out of Egypt and Jordan and then let back in; they've been totally banned from Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Syria.