I also get to spy on other directors' sets this way!

I have known Costa for a long time. His sons live in my building. He has seen all my films since my first short as well as all the movies I was in. But he still surprised me because I am usually offered romantic hero-type parts for which I don't have much to do apart be there. Being a priest is a powerful role. How does one walk, how does one wear a cassock? You must be precise with yourself and with what the character implies. I thought it'd be possible for me to work on the script of my next movie during my stay in Bucharest. How wrong I was. I had to concentrate very hard on my part : it was much more demanding and required much more work than the other parts I played.

A.A.: What happens when the Mathieu Kassovitz of la Haine (Hate) meets the Costa-Gavras of Z and L'Aveu (The Confession)?

M.K.: A great movie happens! When I was a kid, my father showed me Costa's films. The films I directed where influenced by such movies as Z or L'Aveu (The Confession). Deep, powerful films that tackle important, primordial issues. But it takes balls to make a film like this one. Unlike La Haine (Hate) which was about police brutality, this film is about the very building-blocks of our society. When Costa looks into religion, into these men's silence, or into responsibility, morals - religious or not - and into the choice and ability of each of us to resist and to take action, well he is in fact exploring our very identities. Costa also accepts to take risks. He leaves his usual environment, his comfort and makes a film without any stars in it.

In Romania, we were a crew of nearly 200 people, and a director must manage all this, deal with it. Costa has a very open mind so he managed to turn everything into his own advantage. He knows exactly what will show in the film and what will not, so he doesn't really pay attention to anything happening around that. I would have gone crazy after three days but he just remained incredibly calm and focused.

A.A.: What about your relations with the German actors, Tukur and Muhe?

M.K.: We all arrived on the set with such motivation... We all were confirmed actors, with some notoriety in our own countries, but not at an international level. So we were totally and sincerely committed. Tukur is a wonderful actor, slightly offbeat in real life. He walks around with his tweed hat riveted to his head seeming to have just come out of a Kurt Weill concert. We had such fights over music! But that was rather fun. I could hear his accordion in the hotel corridors.

Mühe is more of the discreet type. It's interesting to watch two actors who are roughly the same age but who have different backgrounds, one having lived and worked in Eastern Germany and the other in Western Germany. They don't approach acting, and freedom in acting in the same way.

A.A.: You were very moved at the first screening of the work print... After the screening, you called Ulrich from your mobile and spoke for half an hour...

M.K.: Tukur and I talked a lot on the set. We talked about what making such a film meant to us, about responsibility, our passivity. We didn't dream up a better world in a Bucharest hotel room, but we confronted our doubts, our sources of anger and our beliefs.

In general, when you see a film you're in for the first time, you look at yourself... But in this one, I forgot all about me, about Costa, about Bucharest. I was moved by the way the subject was handled, by this restraint that turns out to be so much more powerful. I felt angry about our present passivity, about our ability to settle for horror. I called Tukur because he just explodes in this film; because I could see only him; because he impressed me... I was jealous of his talent as an actor... In Bucharest, we sometimes had doubts as to our responsibility to make such a film...So I wanted to tell him we were totally right...