black
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Maybe more than a teller, I am a story listener. I really enjoy listening to stories. I remember them and keep them in my mind. All of my films are a collection of small stories that have been told to me.

Abbas Kiarostami

I 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.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI

Digital Fall Film Good Prepare Sleep Taken
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.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI

Character Know Not People Real Well
In order to be universal, you have to be rooted in your own culture.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI

Culture Order Own Rooted Universal
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.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI

Better Football Footballer Home Rule Thinking
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

Backseat Car Interfere Present Shooting Sitting Ten
I think that if you’re a digital thinker, you can use a digital camera.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI

Camera Digital Thinker Thinking Use
If we’re not going to take full advantage of digital, then 35mm is a better medium. Especially for shooting dramas – I have no problem with 35mm.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI

Advantage Digital Drama Especially Shooting Video
In the total darkness, poetry is still there, and it is there for you.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI

Darkness Desire Hope Poetry Still Total You
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

Audience Back Director Film Looks Film Managed Surprised
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.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI

Ambition Bad Copy Film Life Nothing Shape Thinking
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
It’s very true that non-actors feel more comfortable in front of a digital camera, without the lights and the large crowd around them, and we arrive at much more intimate moments with them.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI

Camera Digital Intimate Moments Light
I do believe in [Robert] Bresson’s method of creation through omission, not through addition.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI

Addition Believe Creation Omission Robert
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

Believe Cinema Good Interested
The day we run out of petrol is the day Iran will be free.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI

Day Free Iran Petrol Run Running
I don’t like reverse-angle shots – I find them very fake and very untruthful to the viewer.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI

Angle Fake Reverse Shot Untruthful

Maybe more than a teller, I am a story listener. I really enjoy listening to stories. I remember them and keep them in my mind. All of my films are a collection of small stories that have been told to me.

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Maybe more than a teller, I am a story listener. I really enjoy listening to stories. I remember them and keep them in my mind. All of my films are a collection of small stories that have been told to me.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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