'Up the Junction' really made me understand the power of cinema to create a vivid sense of a community. When I went on to make 'Bhaji on the Beach,' it was this sense I tried to recreate.

The press made me something I really wasn't and I tried to live up to what they made me.

I never made any public statements. At least, I tried never to make any public statements.

I remember a picture on the front page of the 'Sun' during the Brixton riots: a rasta guy with a petrol bomb, and a headline saying something like: 'The Future of Britain.' And I thought: 'Wow! Look at the power of that image,' and I wanted to get behind the camera to make these people three-dimensional.

One of the head guys at Disney categorically said to me, 'We don't want to make children's films any more. We want to make films that are going to appeal to all quadrants.' Hence you have films like 'Shrek' and all the Pixar stuff, which is designed to suit everybody.

On the outside, America looks like this great melting pot, but on the inside, there's this segregation in American cinema. Why does a Latino film have to be for Latinos? Why is a black film just for black people? Why?