Best 106 quotes of Abbas Kiarostami on MyQuotes

All the different nations in the world, despite their differences of appearance and religion and language and way of life, still have one thing in common, and that is what's inside of all of us. If we X-rayed the insides of different human beings, we wouldn't be able to tell from those X-rays what the person's language or background or race is.

As film-makers, it is very important for us to find common ground between cultures, and maybe that's less the case for politicians who benefit more from finding the conflicts and differences between us.

As soon as people enter a theater they must become moron consumers who must be fed information.

A work of art doesn't exist outside the perception of the audience.

Children are very strong and independent characters and can come up with more interesting things than Marlon Brando, and it's sometimes very difficult to direct or order them to do something.

Cinema gives you the opportunity to be both a grandparent and a grandchild whereas in life you cannot be both at the same time.

Cinema seats make people lazy. They expect to be given all the information. But for me, question marks are the punctuation of life.

Close-Up has affected later films that I've made.

Close-Up is a very particular film in my oeuvre. It's a film that was made in a very particular way; mainly because I didn't really have the time to think about how to go about making the film.

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.

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.

Film is very much a universal and common voice, and we can't limit it to one particular culture.

Having an international voice is not really about whether we speak Persian or any other language.

I believe there's only good cinema and bad cinema.

I can only display what I've been nurtured with, which is this worldview which has become my view. If I displayed anything different from it in my work, I wouldn't deserve this heritage.

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. I have a picture from the end of the shoot, and in it I have lost all my hair.

I 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.

I do believe in [Robert] Bresson's method of creation through omission, not through addition.

I do believe that a film like Ten could never have been made with a 35mm camera. The first part of the film lasts 17 minutes, and by the end of that part, the kid has totally forgotten the camera.

I 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.

I don't like reverse-angle shots - I find them very fake and very untruthful to the viewer.

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.

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.

If you are a businessman or a politician in Iran, you can get a visa as quickly as you ask for it.

I had intended to make another film, called Pocket Money, which was to be about children at a school. I was very much intrigued by the story [of Close Up] - it came into my dreams and I was very much influenced by it. So I called my producer and asked that we put aside Pocket Money and start something else, and he agreed.

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. I feel it as a friend, as something that doesn't make an impression on people, that doesn't make them feel uncomfortable, and that is completely forgotten in my way of approaching life and people and film.

I have somewhat lost my enthusiasm in the last years. Mainly because film students using digital video these days have not really produced anything which is more than superficial or simplistic; so I have my doubts.

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.

I'm still very grateful to digital cameras in general, but I didn't have this feeling with the RED one.

I never intended to write poems, nor to be a photographer, nor to be a film-maker. I just took many, many pictures and I would put them in an album, and then some years later I decided to show them and suddenly I was called a photographer. Same thing with my poetry. They're notes that I'd written in a book and it may be considered poetry.

In my films, I try to give people as little information as possible, which is still much more than what they get in real life. I feel that they should be grateful for the little bit of information I give them.

In my mind, there isn't as much of a distinction between documentary and fiction as there is between a good movie and a bad one.

In my opinion the man looks at the relationship in a more bitter fashion and the woman still holds great hopes.

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.

In order to be universal, you have to be rooted in your own culture.

In real life, when someone's partner calls them, they can tell from the first word their partner says what their mood is.

In the total darkness, poetry is still there, and it is there for you.

In this type of cinema, whether working with actors or non-actors, as much as you do direct them, if you allow yourself to be directed by them, then the end result will be much more pleasing. The real and individual strengths of the actors is allowed to be expressed and is something that does affect the audience very deeply.

I often say to my students in workshops that if they are trying to find literary inspiration, they should not go and read novels, because novels are more appropriate for series. Where as they should read short stories - that's the right format for you to be able to actually display the narrative in a film.

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.

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.

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.

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. So first, it was just a memory. But then I realized that in life, it's a much more general sentiment - that instead of waiting for other people's judgment, I'd rather focus on my own feelings, that everything is fine. To go on with my life rather than anticipating other people's judgements that might be negative.

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.

I spend a lot of time doing carpentry. Sometimes there is nothing that gives me the contentment that sawing a piece of wood does.

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.

I think I really produce my best work in Iran.

I think I'm no different to my friends who are doctors or businessmen or architects - we all started watching films of the golden age together. But whether I'm making films or writing poetry or doing photography, it's very much rooted in my sense of unease. And that's really where everything goes back to.

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.

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.