Abbas Kiarostami quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Abbas Kiarostami

Abbas Kiarostami Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Abbas Kiarostami on Wise Famous Quotes.

Morning is white,
evening is black,
a gray sorrow
in between.

The full moon
reflected in water,
the water
contained in the bowl,
and the thirsty man

deep in sleep.

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 violence can never be justified.

A digital camera does have many advantages and I was a believer that digital video would be a big influence on film-making.

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

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

I think I really produce my best work in Iran.

When you look at nature, you see a hidden mystery that gives a special flavor to the photograph.

A movie is about human beings, about humanity.

The digital camera has given me total freedom and a different way of filming.

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.

If I do continue to have the opportunity to work in Iran, that's very much what I'd prefer to do.

I can watch films and say how technically beautiful they are, but I'm not impressed by any technicality.

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

I have no advice for anyone on how to live.

Directors don't always create, they can also destroy with too many demands.

You won't believe it but
I quench my thirst
by drinking from a mirage.

The experience of life teaches us that being like someone in love is more real, because everything is uncertain.

Following the mirage
here I am at the water's edge
without the feeling of thirst.

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

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

I thought that I had been asked every kind of question possible.

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.

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

I think Woody Allen is Woody Allen, and no matter where he goes he still makes his Woody Allen films.

The day we run out of petrol is the day Iran will be free.

There is violence in real life but I would never impose violence in a film just to attract the audience.

I think that if you're a digital thinker, you can use a digital camera.

As long as I take the responsibility of the choice, I have to make the choice that is as right as possible.

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

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

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

Whether you consider me a master filmmaker or not, I do it with my intuition and my vision, my experience as a storyteller.

Autumn afternoon:
a sycamore leaf
falls softly
and rests
on its own shadow

There are at least two retrospectives of my work each year in some country.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

My way of expression is full of complications and mystery because that's my perception of life.

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

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

Good cinema is what we can believe, and bad cinema is what we can't believe.

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

I never reflect or convey that which I have not experienced myself.

Unfortunately, cinema critics are very few in America, 400-500 people, but there are more critics of Iran.

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.

Usually when I write a script, I have in mind some real people that I'm writing about, who don't always act in the film afterward.

Using non-actors has its own rules and really requires that you allow them to do their own thing.

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.

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!

Anything I've not experienced I do not look to for a subject. I have to feel it.

Light: the greatest painter and photographer of all. At every single moment of our lives we see different images, different pictures.

We are nothing but a link between our culture and what we can actually produce.

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

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

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

I've often noticed that we are not able to look at what we have in front of us, unless it's inside a frame.

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.

It's true that the best way of knowing yourself is to put yourself into different situations.

I never really learned photography.

The world is my workshop. It is not my home.

I really enjoy listening to stories. I remember them and keep them in my mind.