Abbas Kiarostami Quotes About Film

Quotes about: Film

• It 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 Kiarostami

  Thinking, Mind, Digital

  Interview with Geoff Andrew, www.theguardian.com. April 28, 2005.

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

  Abbas Kiarostami

  Voice, Culture, Limits

  Interview with Geoff Andrew, www.theguardian.com. April 28, 2005.

• 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

  Fall, Taken, Sleep

  Interview with Sam Adams, www.avclub.com. March 17, 2011.

• 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, Thinking, Shapes

  Interview with Sam Adams, www.avclub.com. March 17, 2011.

• 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.

  Abbas Kiarostami

  People, Directors, Film

  Interview with Geoff Andrew, www.theguardian.com. April 28, 2005.

• 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.

  Abbas Kiarostami

  Book, Writing, Years

  Interview with Geoff Andrew, www.theguardian.com. April 28, 2005.

• 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

  Government, Issues, Important

  Interview with Geoff Andrew, www.theguardian.com. April 28, 2005.

• When I talk to some of the younger filmmakers, they are so worried about their films that, eventually, this state of being worried reflects itself in and helps the final work. Whereas, with projects that are meticulously planned, you look at the end result and it is full of emptiness.

  Abbas Kiarostami

  Finals, Looks, Emptiness

  "INTERVIEW: Films Without Borders: Abbas Kiarostami Talks About “ABC Africa” and Poetic Cinema". Interview with Scott Foundas, www.indiewire.com. May 7, 2002.

• When the film [Certified Copy] was in the Cannes Festival, I realized that the fact of having it shot in a different culture, in a different language, in a different setting, that wasn't mine and that I didn't belong to, gave me a totally different relationship to the film. When I was sitting in the audience during the official screening in Cannes, I didn't feel that it was my film.

  Abbas Kiarostami

  Different, Culture, Sitting

  Interview with Sam Adams, www.avclub.com. March 17, 2011.

• 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.

  Abbas Kiarostami

  Real, Grateful, People

  "They Should Be Grateful: An Interview with Abbas Kiarostami". Interview with Zachary Wigon, filmmakermagazine.com. February 13, 2013.

• This [the earthquake] was a very big influence on me, and the issue of life and death from then on does recur in my films.

  Abbas Kiarostami

  Earthquakes, Issues, Life And Death

  Interview with Geoff Andrew, www.theguardian.com. April 28, 2005.

• My last experience of film-making was Tickets, a three-episode film in Italy, the third of which is directed by myself. It's not for me to judge whether it's a good film or a bad film, but what I could say is that nobody had a cultural or linguistic issue with what was produced.

  Abbas Kiarostami

  Issues, Judging, Three

  Interview with Geoff Andrew, www.theguardian.com. April 28, 2005.

• 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.

  Abbas Kiarostami

  Inspiration, Trying, Students

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I prefer the films that put their audience to sleep in the theater. Some films have made me doze off in the theater, but the same films have made me stay up at night, wake up thinking about them in the morning, and keep on thinking about them for weeks.

  Abbas Kiarostami

  Morning, Sleep, Night

• It was a film that I knew, that I had seen, that I was familiar with, but I wasn't anxious about it at any point during the screening. I snoozed twice, and this is something I couldn't have imagined that I would feel detached, as I did with this film [Certified Copy].

  Abbas Kiarostami

  Film, Anxious, Familiar

  Interview with Sam Adams, www.avclub.com. March 17, 2011.

• 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.

  Abbas Kiarostami

  Thinking, Way, Film

  Interview with Geoff Andrew, www.theguardian.com. April 28, 2005.

• 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.

  Abbas Kiarostami

  Progress, Elements, Kind

  Interview with Geoff Andrew, www.theguardian.com. April 28, 2005.

• 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

  Football, Home, Thinking

  Interview with Geoff Andrew, www.theguardian.com. April 28, 2005.

• 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

  Listening, Mind, Remember

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I don't generally derive my stories from novels. I try to turn into film things I have felt or experienced.

  Abbas Kiarostami

  Trying, Stories, Film

  Source: aaroncutler.tumblr.com

• The kind of sleep that I had during my own film [Certified Copy] screening in Cannes is different. It's not because of the specificity of the film. It was because of my relationship as an author to this film. Usually when I take my films to festivals, I feel incredibly anxious about them. I wonder how it will be received, how the audience will react. I feel deeply responsible for them. Whereas this time, I didn't have that responsibility on my shoulders.

  Abbas Kiarostami

  Sleep, Responsibility, Different

  Interview with Sam Adams, www.avclub.com. March 17, 2011.

• 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.

  Abbas Kiarostami

  Dream, Children, School

  Interview with Geoff Andrew, www.theguardian.com. April 28, 2005.

• 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.

  Abbas Kiarostami

  Believe, Kids, Cameras

  Interview with Geoff Andrew, www.theguardian.com. April 28, 2005.

• 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.

  Abbas Kiarostami

  Character, Reality, Mind

  Interview with Geoff Andrew, www.theguardian.com. April 28, 2005.

• I don't ask my students to have studied film or any education in general. What I ask them is to come and sit and tell me a story, and the way they choose it and tell it, for me, the best criteria for whether they are right for making films. There's nothing more important than being able to tell your story orally.

  Abbas Kiarostami

  Important, Students, Film

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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