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Religion works on some people but not on everyone, because it says, 'Stop thinking and accept what I tell you.' That's not valid for people who want to think and reflect.

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
People
Accepting
Says
Stop
Religion
Everyone
Valid
Tell
Reflect
Think
Accept
Thinking
Works

More quotes by Abbas Kiarostami

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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.
Abbas Kiarostami
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I think that if you're a digital thinker, you can use a digital camera.
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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.
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The day we run out of petrol is the day Iran will be free.
Abbas Kiarostami
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There were years when Hitchcock was like a master to me, but now I think he's so artificial. I can watch films and say how technically beautiful they are, but I'm not impressed by any technicality.
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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 wasn't searching for a common denominator - I started wondering about the challenge of working in other cultures. What I reached was the sudden acknowledgment of the universal aspect of filmmaking.
Abbas Kiarostami
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Film is very much a universal and common voice, and we can't limit it to one particular culture.
Abbas Kiarostami
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Directors don't always create, they can also destroy with too many demands.
Abbas Kiarostami
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I only make notes, I don't write dialogues in full. And the notes are very much based on my knowledge of person.
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 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.
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 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
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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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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
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Anything I've not experienced I do not look to for a subject. I have to feel it.
Abbas Kiarostami
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I'm still very grateful to digital cameras in general, but I didn't have this feeling with the RED one.
Abbas Kiarostami
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Unfortunately, cinema critics are very few in America, 400-500 people, but there are more critics of Iran.
Abbas Kiarostami
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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