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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

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Abbas Kiarostami
Age: 75 †
Born: 1940
Born: January 1
Died: 2016
Died: January 1
Actor
Cinematographer
Contributing Editor
Film Director
Film Editor
Film Producer
Graphic Designer
Illustrator
Painter
Photographer
Teheran
Cinema
Interested
Much
Believe
Good

More quotes by Abbas Kiarostami

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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
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A digital camera does have many advantages and I was a believer that digital video would be a big influence on film-making.
Abbas Kiarostami
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The fact of having this very new context, this unheard-of way of working, for me was very pleasant. I didn't feel that I was working, that I had any kind of burden to wear, to carry. I really was very happy and very lighthearted during the whole process of making the film [Certified Copy], of shooting it.
Abbas Kiarostami
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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
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I think that if you're a digital thinker, you can use a digital camera.
Abbas Kiarostami
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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
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In the total darkness, poetry is still there, and it is there for you.
Abbas Kiarostami
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I think life is so difficult to catch, it's so furtive, that a copy, a film, can in no way catch it and represent it.
Abbas Kiarostami
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I have no advice for anyone on how to live.
Abbas Kiarostami
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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.
Abbas Kiarostami
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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
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I think I really produce my best work in Iran.
Abbas Kiarostami
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Close-Up has affected later films that I've made.
Abbas Kiarostami
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Therefore, when you see the end result, it's difficult to see who's the director, me or them. Ultimately, everything belongs to the actors - we just manage the situation.
Abbas Kiarostami
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Of the hundreds of points to enter and exit that are offered to me, I have to choose the one that I feel is the least wrong, the least fake. It is fake, it is a moment that I choose to erupt the story, but I make it as smooth as I can. What enables me to do it is the skill of filmmaking.
Abbas Kiarostami
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I would be too selfish if I said everyone should see my movies more than once. To say that would mean I'm just marketing my work!
Abbas Kiarostami
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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.
Abbas Kiarostami
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This kind of directing, I think, is very similar to being a football coach. You prepare your players and place them in the right places, but once the game is on, there's nothing much you can do - you can smoke a cigarette or get nervous, but you can't do much.
Abbas Kiarostami
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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.
Abbas Kiarostami
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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.
Abbas Kiarostami