Chantal Akerman

I never felt that I belonged. When I was at school... First I went to a Jewish school, when I was very little. But when I was 12, they put me in a school with a lot of traditions, and they were educated people and they were talking about Greece and the Parthenon and I don't know what.

My grandparents were very well-educated people, but in the Jewish tradition. They knew everything about the Bible. And then they had to come to Brussels, to run away from Poland, because there was too much anti-Semitism. They lost everything they had.

My mother arrived in Brussels in 1938 from a small town near Krakow. But strangely enough, in 1942 or 1943, she was taken back to Auschwitz, which was just 30 miles from where she grew up. Her parents died there and a lot of her family.

I am so tired of ruggedly handsome heroes. I don't know too many ruggedly handsome people who are necessarily nice people. In fact, the beautiful people have a big handicap because they rely too much on their appearance and don't bother to become interesting.