I think I really produce my best work in Iran.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMII think Woody Allen is Woody Allen, and no matter where he goes he still makes his Woody Allen films.
More Abbas Kiarostami Quotes
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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.
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.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
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.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
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 -
Close-Up has affected later films that I’ve made.
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 -
Silence doesn’t seem heavy or difficult.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
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 -
Cinema gives you the opportunity to be both a grandparent and a grandchild whereas in life you cannot be both at the same time.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
I’m not sure that my films show the reality of life in Iran; we show different aspects of life. Iran is a very extensive and expansive place, and sometimes, even for us who live there, some of the realities are very hard to comprehend.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
I think that if you’re a digital thinker, you can use a digital camera.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
My way of expression is full of complications and mystery because that’s my perception of life.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
Using non-actors has its own rules and really requires that you allow them to do their own thing.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
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 -
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 KIAROSTAMI -
If you are a businessman or a politician in Iran, you can get a visa as quickly as you ask for it.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
In order to be able to cooperate with a child, you have to come down to below their level in order to communicate with them. Actors are also like children.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
If I do continue to have the opportunity to work in Iran, that’s very much what I’d prefer to do.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
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 -
I saw this French woman, this English man in Italy. It was a film [Certified Copy] I knew well, but I had already seen it, and I was familiar with it, and I had no feeling of anxiety or responsibility toward it.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
Everybody knows that I am not usually patient enough to actually sit down and watch one of my own films from the beginning to the end – I never do.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
I believe there’s only good cinema and bad cinema.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
Anything I’ve not experienced I do not look to for a subject. I have to feel it.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
I think being someone in love is so hard to define, so temporary, because retrospectively we often deny the state in which we were in love.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
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 -
Despite the great advantages of digital video and the great ease of using the medium, still those who use it have first to understand the sensitivities of how to best use the medium.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI