tim Roth in Krakow; photo - offpluscamera

Artistic freedom was one of many things on the mind of British actor and director Tim Roth, one of the guests of honour at Krakow's Off Plus Camera Festival.

Roth told a press conference on Wednesday, in which he spoke out on many subjects, that the British film industry was in crisis (when is it ever not?) and hailed the internet “the best thing that ever happened to cinema”

Speaking at the event, where he is receiving the annual “Against the Current” award for offbeat achievements in film, the 49 year-old actor said that rather than studying film-making, aspiring directors should “un-study” it, reports Nicholas Hodge.

Roth cut a slight, puckish figure, peppering his musings with a flow of jokes and liberal use of the f-word, generating ripples of laughter throughout the room.

Roth encouraged budding film-makers to get experimenting before the powers that be “outlaw radical thinking on the internet.”

The actor from Dulwich in south London expressed his wish to get back in the director's chair, following the critically-acclaimed The War Zone (1999), and revealed that he is working on a screenplay, although financial matters are far from settled.

“It's not commercial,” he said, “it's difficult, very dark and American,” adding that, as a consequence, “it will be highly unpopular.”

“It’s a gentle story about children.”

Speaking of the challenges for original film-makers – which Off Camera was set up to champion – Roth said that it's “very difficult” trying to put an offbeat movie “amongst the Hulks and Harry Potters,” making a wry reference to his own foray into blockbuster territory, the 2003 monster epic Hulk.

However, the Brit star says that he loves directing, which gives him, “the chance to do a film that I want to make, rather than one someone else wants to make.”

Roth affirmed that film is “a director's medium,” and that he relished being involved in discussions about every element of a production.

“As an actor, I get to have one conversation,” he explained, “but as a director I get to have them all.”

Asked if he could single out one figure that he would like to have cooperated with, past or present, he cited Orson Welles without hesitation.

Of the movies he has worked on, he cited Michael Haneke's Funny Games as the most demanding.

“He's brilliant – I love him. But really hard,” Roth confessed.

Likewise, he described Tarantino, who he worked with on Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, as “slightly insane, very fast, incredibly creative and quite brilliant.” (pg)