I remember when I came out of an exam thinking I had done well and then I had a clue that maybe one answer was wrong, I remembered that I rather stop knowing, stop thinking about it, appreciating life instead.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMIClose-Up is a very particular film in my oeuvre. It’s a film that was made in a very particular way; mainly because I didn’t really have the time to think about how to go about making the film.
More Abbas Kiarostami Quotes
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I was mentioning with the digital camera, maybe this new fashion of filmmaking gives a closer look of what life may be like. But it’s still nothing but a copy.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
When I’m in the process of making a movie I’m not thinking about the finished result, and whether people have to see it once or more than once, and what the reaction to it will be. I just make it, and then I live with the consequences.
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Good cinema is what we can believe and bad cinema is what we can’t believe. What you see and believe in is very much what I’m interested in.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
I don’t like reverse-angle shots – I find them very fake and very untruthful to the viewer.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
We are nothing but a link between our culture and what we can actually produce.
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When you take a tree that is rooted in the ground, and transfer it from one place to another, the tree will no longer bear fruit.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
There were years when Hitchcock was like a master to me, but now I think he’s so artificial. I can watch films and say how technically beautiful they are, but I’m not impressed by any technicality.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
I think it was [Jean-Luc] Godard who said that life is nothing but a bad copy of film, but then our ambition must be to make better films and better shapes of forms that are given in life.
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Religion works on some people but not on everyone, because it says, ‘Stop thinking and accept what I tell you.’ That’s not valid for people who want to think and reflect.
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.
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Using non-actors has its own rules and really requires that you allow them to do their own thing.
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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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Those same people, when they leave the theater, when they look behind the curtains they are curious about their neighbors, they can guess if their neighbors are siblings or a couple, how old they are, what their occupation is.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
When I find the character, I try to spend time with them and get to know them very well. Therefore my notes are not from the character that I had in my mind before, but are instead based on the people I’ve met in real life.
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I thought that choosing a non-professional was a condition for me, because it would allow Juliette to have a less-professional way of acting. It would challenge her performance as a professional actress.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI






