"I did not want to meticulously reconstruct Italy of that time. This is not a historical document by any means. Instead, it is more like a children's story, with the camp being sort of a Platonic picture of Evil's lair or the monster's lair."

"With Guido, I wanted to create a character who was totally integrated into Italian society, who lives his life, does his job, isn't the least interested in politics and then with one blow, his life is suddenly over. That's just the way it really happened to many people. Guido's family is one anyone can identify with - happy, loving. And then, without having done anything wrong and without any reason, they are thrown into horror."

"According to what I read, saw and felt in the victim's accounts, I realized nothing in a film could even come close to the reality of what happened. You can't show unimaginable horror - you can only ever show less than what it was. So I didn't want audiences to look for realism in my movie."

"... I was so struck by how unfathomable the horror was, that it seemed quite possible for a man like Guido to pretend the whole ordeal was only a game. This is something Primo Levi talks about in 'If This Is A Man'. He describes the morning reveille at the camp when all the prisoners are naked and motionless and he looks around thinking: 'What if all this were nothing but a joke? This cannot be true...' This seemed a question all the survivors had in mind: how could this have been true?"

View part of an interview with Roberto Begnini