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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 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
Enough
Beginning
Never
Usually
Watches
Watch
Everybody
Actually
Film
Patient
Ends
Films

More quotes by Abbas Kiarostami

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I think violence can never be justified. At the same time, nobody’s culture or beliefs should be insulted, that’s not something I can accept either. But I cannot justify or accept any violence at all.
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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.
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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!
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Cinema seats make people lazy. They expect to be given all the information. But for me, question marks are the punctuation of life.
Abbas Kiarostami
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People have curiosity, they have intelligence, they have interest in understanding their peers. But producers and directors of cinema have decided that the seats in the theaters have been made to transform people's minds to lazy minds.
Abbas Kiarostami
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The only thing that I can do is hold a mirror in front of men and women, in front of the viewer in the theater, to reflect. There is nothing but reflection that I could intend to offer the viewer of the film.
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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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, and we stop having aspirations for being in a definite state, we know life better and are able to enjoy it better.
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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.
Abbas Kiarostami
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I thought that I had been asked every kind of question possible.
Abbas Kiarostami
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I have no advice for anyone on how to live.
Abbas Kiarostami
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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.
Abbas Kiarostami
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Using non-actors has its own rules and really requires that you allow them to do their own thing.
Abbas Kiarostami
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If you are a businessman or a politician in Iran, you can get a visa as quickly as you ask for it.
Abbas Kiarostami
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Having an international voice is not really about whether we speak Persian or any other language.
Abbas Kiarostami
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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
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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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I don't generally derive my stories from novels. I try to turn into film things I have felt or experienced.
Abbas Kiarostami
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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
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This concept that you refer to in Buddhism is something I've been nurtured with through the history of my country for 700, 800 years - Persian poets and philosophers haven't said anything different with regard to experiencing life in the moment, as opposed to the belief of permanence.
Abbas Kiarostami