Mike Leigh on the 'hard truths' of film, happiness and World War III

"It's a privilege to be able to make films and it's a privilege which is getting tougher to experience," he told AFP during a retrospective of his work at the prestigious Cinemateque in Paris. The film reunites the two Black British actors from "Secret and Lies", nearly 30 years after it won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes festival and a host of Oscar nominations. "In making the decision to center on Black characters, one of the deliberate things that I've very consciously done is to say: 'This is not going to be a film that deals in tropes and stereotypes and troubles with the law and drug issues and all the gang stuff'," Leigh continued.