When you take a tree that is rooted in the ground, and transfer it from one place to another, the tree will no longer bear fruit.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMIWhen you take a tree that is rooted in the ground, and transfer it from one place to another, the tree will no longer bear fruit.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMIIn my opinion the man looks at the relationship in a more bitter fashion and the woman still holds great hopes.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMIThe one-word cinema wasn’t possible for me anymore. I’d hit a wall, a dead end. Therefore I thought I’d turn back.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMII 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 KIAROSTAMIThere 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 KIAROSTAMIUnfortunately, cinema critics are very few in America, 400-500 people, but there are more critics of Iran.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMII 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 KIAROSTAMII don’t generally derive my stories from novels. I try to turn into film things I have felt or experienced.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMIWhether you consider me a master filmmaker or not, I do it with my intuition and my vision, my experience as a storyteller.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMIWhile 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 KIAROSTAMIIf 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 KIAROSTAMII 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 KIAROSTAMIThe day we run out of petrol is the day Iran will be free.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMII don’t have very complete scripts for my films. I have a general outline and a character in my mind, and I make no notes until I find the character who’s in my mind in reality.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMIIt 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.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMII 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