The Iranian government as a whole has no relationship with my films. They’re not particularly interested, perhaps this kind of cinema is not very interesting to them.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMICinema gives you the opportunity to be both a grandparent and a grandchild whereas in life you cannot be both at the same time.
More Abbas Kiarostami Quotes
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I prefer the films that put their audience to sleep in the theater. Some films have made me doze off in the theater, but the same films have made me stay up at night, wake up thinking about them in the morning, and keep on thinking about them for weeks.
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The film [Close Up] made itself, to a large extent. The characters involved were very real, I wasn’t directing the actors so much as being directed by them. So it was a very particular film.
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I have no advice for anyone on how to live.
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I saw this French woman, this English man in Italy. It was a film [Certified Copy] I knew well, but I had already seen it, and I was familiar with it, and I had no feeling of anxiety or responsibility toward it.
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If I do continue to have the opportunity to work in Iran, that’s very much what I’d prefer to do.
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I think Woody Allen is Woody Allen, and no matter where he goes he still makes his Woody Allen films.
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Despite the great advantages of digital video and the great ease of using the medium, still those who use it have first to understand the sensitivities of how to best use the medium.
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I’ve often noticed that we are not able to look at what we have in front of us, unless it’s inside a frame.
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I do believe that a film like Ten could never have been made with a 35mm camera. The first part of the film lasts 17 minutes, and by the end of that part, the kid has totally forgotten the camera.
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In real life, when someone’s partner calls them, they can tell from the first word their partner says what their mood is.
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People have curiosity, they have intelligence, they have interest in understanding their peers. But producers and directors of cinema have decided that the seats in the theaters have been made to transform people’s minds to lazy minds.
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I do think that we are sometimes, as directors, guilty of portraying or asking our actors to behave in certain ways that are perhaps not very morally acceptable. I’m not the only one.
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I didn’t just see myself as a film director here [in Life And Nothing More], but also as an observer of people who had been condemned to death.
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In my mind, there isn’t as much of a distinction between documentary and fiction as there is between a good movie and a bad one.
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Therefore, when you see the end result, it’s difficult to see who’s the director, me or them. Ultimately, everything belongs to the actors – we just manage the situation.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI






