Flush from a tribute at London's Institute of Contemporary Arts, where he was recently recognised for his work, Spanish director Ventura Pons has returned to Berlin with Amic/Amat, a Panorama selection. The film deals with a man concerned about his legacy. In it, Josep Maria Pou plays a professor who is preparing an inheritance in the form of an essay.

"The idea of the film," Pons explained, "is about leaving something to the next generation so that they can be better than we are."

Pons feels the same about his own work. Asked about the kind of material that attracted him, he said: "It has to be talking about something that really concerns me - I have to believe it. It can be written by somebody else, but it has to be mine.

"I prefer to make little movies from an economic point of view, but big movies from the ideas I explore."

Pons has consistently been making films since the surprise success of his first feature Ocaña, An Intermittent Portrait, which was made in 1978 and invited by the Berlinale Forum a year later.

How does he account for his survival?

"It's a matter of working hard. Film-makers are like craftsmen. Life is work and work is life. And for me, work is cinema."

Advice for young film-makers? "Be real, so that people recognise that this is your work." Owen Levy