I remember where the idea for Fast Food, Fast Women came from," recalls Amos Kollek on the phone from Israel. "Two or three years ago, I had this thought that it would be nice to open a place, sort of a restaurant, where there would be food and women easily available. Like a McDonald's with sex appeal.

"Of course, it was more of a joke than a real plan, because I am not in the restaurant business. But when I wrote the script, I incorporated it into it, and particularly the title. I actually do think that a place called Fast Food, Fast Women, possibly a chain, has some business potential."

Novelist, screenwriter, actor, documentarist, director, producer... no one knows the twists and turns of film-making, from the inside out, from concept to release, better than Amos Kollek. "I like to go my own way," he says, adding on a note of light irony: "And I prefer to work with people I like." Not a secret, nor a dogma, nor a rule of thumb, but a credo.

Born in 1947 in Jerusalem, Kollek has always gone his own way. Son of Teddy Kollek, the eminent mayor of Jerusalem, Amos had to do just that if he ever hoped to leave the shadow of one of the most popular figures on the Israeli political scene. From 1965 to 1968, he served in the Israeli army during one of the decisive moments in his country's history: the Arab-Israeli war of 1967. In 1971, he received a BA in Psychology and Philosophy at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. That same year, he published his first novel, Don't Ask Me If I Love, and was given the Evans Award for Fiction.

Three more novels followed at regular intervals: The Girl Who Brought The War (1973), After They Hanged Him (1976), and The Apple, The Singing And The Gold (1980).

In between, he collaborated with his father on a personal biography, For "Jerusalem, A Life" (1979), to be capped later by the companion documentary Teddy Kollek (1994). And along the way, he contributed articles to Ma'ariv, La'Isha, The Jerusalem Post, The New York Times, and Die Zeit in Germany.

Kollek admits to a restless streak. "My style has changed over the years," he will say modestly when presented with his achievements. "What else can I say? See for yourself." His latest novel, "Four Weeks In Gaza" (1995), translated and published in Germany, is one of his favourites because "it's something new and goes in a different direction". Much the same can be said about his film-making career as actor, screenwriter, director, producer. In other words, if the challenge is there, if it's interesting and fun, if it's not going to take months or years to see a project through, then he's liable to shake the tree to see how the apples fall.

His film career began in the triple-decker pattern of actor, screenwriter, and co-producer on Worlds Apart (1979). To these credits he added director on Goodbye, New York (1984), starring Julie Hagerty; Forever Lulu (1987), with Hanna Schygulla and Alec Baldwin; High Stakes (1989), with Sally Kirkland and Kathy Bates; Double Edge (1994), with Faye Dunaway; and Whore 2 (Bad Girls) (1994), produced by Julian Schlossberg. Favourite films during this period? Link Goodbye, New York with Double Edge and Bad Girls to note a distinct progression in his personal style as a writer-director.

The international breakthrough came with Sue (1997), starring Anna Thomson. It won the FIPRESCI (International Critics) Award and the Ecumenical Award at the 1998 Berlinale, followed by a Special Acting Award for Anna Thomson at the Montreal festival. A year later, Kollek and Thomson were back again in the Berlinale Panorama with Fiona (1999), a hard-edged, half-fiction, half-documentary sequel to Sue which focused on the demimonde of the Manhattan crack-house scene. And, of course, Thomson can be seen again in Kollek's new feature film, Fast Food, Fast Women.

"It was a thrill to work with Anna on a comedy for a change," says Kollek. "It was also fun in general to work on an 'up' movie. It gave me the chance to work, among others, with Louise Lasser, who appeared in some of the early Woody Allen movies. I'm a fan of Woody Allen." The setting is a Manhattan coffee shop, where harassed waitress Bella (Thomson) works. Her 35th birthday is looming and she isn't exactly looking forward to it; tired of her long-standing affair with a married man, she latches on to Bruno (Jamie Harris), a would-be novelist driving a taxi, and tries to bluff her way through the relationship with some tall stories. "The film incorporates characters of different ages," says Kollek. "People looking for love..."

Ron Holloway