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 KIAROSTAMIThe day we run out of petrol is the day Iran will be free.
More Abbas Kiarostami Quotes
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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 -
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 -
I have received the digital camera as a blessing. It has really changed my life as a filmmaker, because I don’t use my camera anymore as a camera. I don’t feel it as a camera.
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I prefer the countryside to cities. This is also true of my films: I have made more films in rural societies, and villages, than in towns.
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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.
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The day we run out of petrol is the day Iran will be free.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
I think that in life, being is nothing but an illusion. If we acknowledge that and accept the fact that we are in between states, that we are moving, and this movement is the nature of our lives
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Cinema gives you the opportunity to be both a grandparent and a grandchild whereas in life you cannot be both at the same time.
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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.
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We are nothing but a link between our culture and what we can actually produce.
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The experience of life teaches us that being like someone in love is more real, because everything is uncertain.
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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.
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The one-word cinema wasn’t possible for me anymore. I’d hit a wall, a dead end. Therefore I thought I’d turn back.
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If I do continue to have the opportunity to work in Iran, that’s very much what I’d prefer to do.
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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






