I can only display what I’ve been nurtured with, which is this worldview which has become my view. If I displayed anything different from it in my work, I wouldn’t deserve this heritage.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMIChildren are very strong and independent characters and can come up with more interesting things than Marlon Brando, and it’s sometimes very difficult to direct or order them to do something.
More Abbas Kiarostami Quotes
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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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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.
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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.
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In my opinion the man looks at the relationship in a more bitter fashion and the woman still holds great hopes.
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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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Cinema seats make people lazy. They expect to be given all the information. But for me, question marks are the punctuation of life.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
My car is my best friend. My office. My home. My location. I have a very intimate sense when I am in a car with someone next to me. We’re in the most comfortable seats because we’re not facing each other, but sitting side by side.
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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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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 KIAROSTAMI -
The [Iranian] government grapples with more important issues and we can maybe say that these films don’t really exist for them. It’s not about whether they like it or don’t; it’s just not very important to them.
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All the different nations in the world, despite their differences of appearance and religion and language and way of life, still have one thing in common, and that is what’s inside of all of us.
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As long as I take the responsibility of the choice, I have to make the choice that is as right as possible.
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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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We are nothing but a link between our culture and what we can actually produce.
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While shooting Ten I was sitting in the backseat, but I didn’t interfere. Sometimes, I was following in another car, so I was not even present on the “set”, because I thought they would work better in my absence.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI






