Film is very much a universal and common voice, and we can’t limit it to one particular culture.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMICinema seats make people lazy. They expect to be given all the information. But for me, question marks are the punctuation of life.
More Abbas Kiarostami Quotes
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Close-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.
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A work of art doesn’t exist outside the perception of the audience.
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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.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
Anything I’ve not experienced I do not look to for a subject. I have to feel it.
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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 -
It’s not so much a question of whether we’ve shot it through 35mm or digital video; what is important is whether the audience accepts it as real.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
I am still very surprised that I managed to make that film [Close Up]. When I actually look back on that film, I really feel that I was not the director but instead just a member of the audience.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
The day we run out of petrol is the day Iran will be free.
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 think that if you’re a digital thinker, you can use a digital camera.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
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 think, just as footballers play better at home, maybe film-makers, too, create better at home, even though the rules of football are the same wherever you go.
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I wasn’t searching for a common denominator – I started wondering about the challenge of working in other cultures. What I reached was the sudden acknowledgment of the universal aspect of filmmaking.
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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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The experience of life teaches us that being like someone in love is more real, because everything is uncertain.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI