Girls from poor families of the 'untouchable,' or lower, caste are 'married' to Yellamma as young as four. No longer allowed to marry a mortal, they are expected to bestow their entire lives to the service of the goddess.

Each January, nearly half a million people visit the small town of Saundatti for ajatre or festival, to be blessed by Yellamma, the Hindu goddess of fertility.

Everything serious in the world is well approached by humour. It's a powerful and often quite subversive tool. I suppose there is an argument that could be made against me for being frivolous, but I do think a laugh is a very generous thing to give.

I've always been interested in exploring difficult subjects for the mainstream.

This is a culture filled with perfect images of women and perfect images of movie actresses, and most people can't live up to them.

We need to be much more robust consumers.

I hope that every film I make has something to offer in the area of making people feel either vindicated or different in terms of who they are.

I've liked being Jewish in America - there's a secular version of Jewishness there that's more about bagels and jokes than going to synagogues.

I've discovered my Jewishness late in life. And I've really enjoyed exploring that world.

There's something about actors - not stars, but actors - if they have the character, and someone is pushing and shoving them to be the best they can be, they enjoy that.

I like the accidental nature of being in the real world.

I love being in real life, and in particular, I like being with young people.

What is the point of teaching how to analyse a poem or a piece of Shakespeare but not to analyse the Internet?

There is nothing wrong with Facebook in itself, except that it is not a very good tool to express the quality of your relationships.

Sometimes you have to put back in the community.

The thing that upsets me is the ubiquitous use of reward technology, which uses our evolutionary biology against us.

I often go out on the street with my camera and ask questions.

I'm in the communications business.

The thing about documentary is that you don't really choose your subjects: they come and grab you out of your bed.

If you look where kids are spending time on the Net, they may have all the information in the world, but they're not accessing it.

I had a sort of classic moment when a friend of mine rang up and said she'd just been to a funeral, and in the middle of the eulogy, this kid had taken out the phone and had a whole proper text conversation - while everyone was weeping!

On telly, there's been a move towards entertainment - with some very high-powered, fast-moving dramas. Then we have the Internet, where we get our information but it's all in bite-size pieces. I think the documentary, as a form, actually speaks to what's missing.

I think the documentary is something that people are hungry for, that it embodies careful thought, nuance.

Our politicians don't say anything anymore: they just refute and assert.