In the late 1970s, Chris Petit was the editor of Time Out’s film section and, during an interview with Wim Wenders, managed to persuade the legendary director to back his debut feature, the acclaimed Radio On.

Since then, Petit has gone on to write a number of novels and direct a series of challenging films, of which Content, a 21st century road movie that muses on travel, the digital age and fathers and sons, is the latest.

Petit will be discussing the film after a screening at Curzon Richmond on Sunday. He spoke to Will Gore ahead of the event.

Will Gore: The film has been categorised as a documentary, but it seems to me to be far more than that – how would you describe it?

Chris Petit: My films often get categorised as ‘essays’ – in other words, hard to pigeonhole. I’ve long given up trying to label them because they deliberately mix fact and fiction and explore perimeter landscapes, which conventional filmmakers ignore.

WG: Content is packed with so many ideas, themes and images – did you have a clear idea of how it was going to turn out from the start?

CP: Only in the vaguest sense. I had been thinking about Radio On, which came out on DVD for the first time in 2008, nearly 30 years after it was made. The historical span that began immediately after its making, with the election of Margaret Thatcher, ended with the financial crash of 2008. As Radio On had caught the mood of the times, I thought it might be a good time to go back on the road.

WG: The internet and email are recurring subjects in the film – what do you think has been the most positive aspect of the growth of the internet and, conversely, the most negative aspect?

CP: Other inventions improved my life more than the internet: radio/cassettes in cars, the ATM, and debit card pin numbers, to name three, but the big advantage of the internet is instant access. The big disadvantage is the same. Once I used to take great pleasure in hunting down second-hand books when there were still plenty of bargains to be had. With the internet, everyone knows the price of everything and it is fixed accordingly.

WG: In Content, you mention your 'itinerant childhood' – is this one of the reasons why road trips appear frequently in your films?

CP: Probably, though passing my driving test was the biggest single achievement of my life in terms of change. Mobility was a way of avoiding writing or making films about the English class system, which bored me, ditto, films about the Queen or life in NW3. If someone had said to me 20 years ago a film about the Queen would one day prove a huge cultural hit, I would have said it was as likely as Clint Eastwood making a film about rugby union.

Content (18), with Chris Petit Q and A, Curzon Richmond, Water Lane, February 7, 1pm, £11, curzoncinemas.com