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Anything I’ve not experienced I do not look to for a subject. I have to feel it.

Abbas Kiarostami

Whether you consider me a master filmmaker or not, I do it with my intuition and my vision, my experience as a storyteller.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI

Consider Filmmaker Intuition Master Storyteller Vision
There are certainties in existence, but love is something much harder to define than light and dark, life and death. I think saying you are “like” someone in love sounds right.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI

Certainties Dark Death Define Existence Harder Life Thinking
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

Audience Film Morning Night Sleep Theatre
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.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI

Asking Behave Director Guilty More Perhaps Thinking
As long as I take the responsibility of the choice, I have to make the choice that is as right as possible.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI

Choice Long Possible Responsibility Right
In my experience as a director, I think there is obviously something of the way men – maybe that’s a common point with Shirin – the way men see women in the film, and the way these two characters see each other.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI

Character Director Experience Men Shirin Thinking
I really haven’t seen The Report in a long time. I don’t have a copy, but I’ll have to see it again. I think it would be good to put both these men next to each other.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI

Copy Long Men Report Thinking Time
I don’t generally derive my stories from novels. I try to turn into film things I have felt or experienced.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI

Derive Experienced Film Novel Story Trying
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

Element Eliminated Film Kind Minimalism Progress Progressive
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

Different Edit Joke Notice People Person Silence Time
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.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI

Actor Character Directing Film Large Real Very
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

Cinema Film Government Interesting Iranian Perhaps Relationship
I believe there’s only good cinema and bad cinema.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI

Bad Believe Cinema Good Only
I thought that I had been asked every kind of question possible.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI

Asked Kind Possible Question
Anything I’ve not experienced I do not look to for a subject. I have to feel it.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI

Experienced Feel Look Looks Subject
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

Actors End Belong Difficult Director Film Ultimately

Anything I’ve not experienced I do not look to for a subject. I have to feel it.

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Anything I’ve not experienced I do not look to for a subject. I have to feel it.

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