I did not have a script [of Close Up]. I made notes in the evenings and we filmed during the day over 40 days.I didn’t sleep a wink for those 40 nights.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMII really think that I don’t mind people sleeping during my films, because I know that some very good films might prepare you for sleeping or falling asleep or snoozing. It’s not to be taken badly at all.
More Abbas Kiarostami Quotes
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In order to be universal, you have to be rooted in your own culture.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
Anything I’ve not experienced I do not look to for a subject. I have to feel it.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
As long as I take the responsibility of the choice, I have to make the choice that is as right as possible.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
The experience of life teaches us that being like someone in love is more real, because everything is uncertain.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
In order to be able to cooperate with a child, you have to come down to below their level in order to communicate with them. Actors are also like children.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
In the total darkness, poetry is still there, and it is there for you.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
A work of art doesn’t exist outside the perception of the audience.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
I don’t generally derive my stories from novels. I try to turn into film things I have felt or experienced.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
I’m not sure that my films show the reality of life in Iran; we show different aspects of life. Iran is a very extensive and expansive place, and sometimes, even for us who live there, some of the realities are very hard to comprehend.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
It seems that film-makers are being divided between those working in digital and those who are not. I think it’s not something predetermined – it all depends on what project we have in mind, and on that basis we choose the medium.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
My films have been progressing towards a certain kind of minimalism, even though it was never intended. Elements which can be eliminated have been eliminated.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
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.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
You’ve noticed that same joke told by two different people, once works, and the other time doesn’t, simply because how the person edits it. The silences, the pauses, what they neglect, what they emphasize – all of this matters.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
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.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
I never reflect or convey that which I have not experienced myself.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI






