Richard Linklater: Film and rock were the fundamental passions of my generation. I don't know if that's still the case today'

"Please don't. Your colleagues have already done so. I have an opinion on the matter, but it's trivial. I'm a filmmaker, not a political scientist. As a citizen, he continues, I'm concerned about the deterioration of our democracies, but I have nothing substantial to add about that individual. I trust that Trump will leave sooner or later and that another president will come along to try to fix what he's broken. That's all I can say, he shrugs. So, let's talk about film instead."

"Linklater born in Houston, Texas, 65 years ago is enthusiastic when it comes to talking about film. He has dedicated the last four decades of his life to this profession. It was also the main passion in his youth, along with reading, baseball and American football. According to Linklater, film became his guiding light the day he invested his savings in a Kodak Super 8 camera and embarked on the adventure of filming in the streets of the university town of Austin."

"However, none of these alternative life projects could compete with the excitement of trying to make films like his heroes: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer, Welles, Scorsese, or Fassbinder. From that impulse came his most important works, such as Slacker (1990), Dazed and Confused (1993), Before Sunrise (1995), A Scanner Darkly (2006) and Boyhood (2014), which are among the best movies that American independent cinema has produced in recent decades."

Richard Linklater refuses to focus on individual political figures, expressing only concern about democratic decline and faith in eventual political change. Born in Houston sixty-five years ago, he pursued passions for film, reading, baseball and American football, and has spent four decades working as a filmmaker. He began making movies after buying a Kodak Super 8 camera and filming the streets of Austin, following earlier spells writing screenplays, playing sports and working on an oil platform. Influenced by Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer, Welles, Scorsese and Fassbinder, he produced seminal independent films including Slacker, Dazed and Confused, Before Sunrise, A Scanner Darkly and Boyhood. He attended the San Sebastian Film Festival to present Nouvelle Vague (2025).

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