Top 100 Abbas Kiarostami Quotes (2024 Update)
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51. “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

52. “In order to be able to cooperate with a child, you have to come down to below their level in order to communicate with them. Actors are also like children.”

— Abbas Kiarostami

53. “I really haven’t seen The Report in a long time. I don’t have a copy, but I’ll have to see it again. I think it would be good to put both these men next to each other.”

— Abbas Kiarostami

54. “I thought that choosing a non-professional was a condition for me, because it would allow Juliette to have a less-professional way of acting. It would challenge her performance as a professional actress.”

— Abbas Kiarostami

55. “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

56. “I have somewhat lost my enthusiasm in the last years. Mainly because film students using digital video these days have not really produced anything which is more than superficial or simplistic; so I have my doubts.”

— Abbas Kiarostami

57. “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

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

— Abbas Kiarostami

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

— Abbas Kiarostami

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

— Abbas Kiarostami

61. “I was mentioning with the digital camera, maybe this new fashion of filmmaking gives a closer look of what life may be like. But it’s still nothing but a copy.”

— Abbas Kiarostami

62. “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

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

— Abbas Kiarostami

64. “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

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

— Abbas Kiarostami

66. “It’s very true that non-actors feel more comfortable in front of a digital camera, without the lights and the large crowd around them, and we arrive at much more intimate moments with them.”

— Abbas Kiarostami

67. “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

68. “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

69. “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.”

— Abbas Kiarostami

70. “I can only display what I’ve been nurtured with, which is this worldview which has become my view. If I displayed anything different from it in my work, I wouldn’t deserve this heritage.”

— Abbas Kiarostami

71. “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

72. “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

73. “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

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

— Abbas Kiarostami

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

— Abbas Kiarostami

76. “This was pointed out to me by somebody who referred to the paintings of Rembrandt and his use of light: some elements are highlighted while others are obscured or even pushed back into the dark. And it’s something that we do – we bring out elements that we want to emphasise.”

— Abbas Kiarostami

77. “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.”

— Abbas Kiarostami

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

— Abbas Kiarostami

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

— Abbas Kiarostami

80. “The Iranian government as a whole has no relationship with my films. They’re not particularly interested, perhaps this kind of cinema is not very interesting to them.”

— Abbas Kiarostami

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

— Abbas Kiarostami

82. “I think that if you’re a digital thinker, you can use a digital camera.”

— Abbas Kiarostami

83. “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

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

— Abbas Kiarostami

85. “I think I really produce my best work in Iran.”

— Abbas Kiarostami

86. “Despite the great advantages of digital video and the great ease of using the medium, still those who use it have first to understand the sensitivities of how to best use the medium.”

— Abbas Kiarostami

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

— Abbas Kiarostami

88. “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

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

— Abbas Kiarostami

90. “I do think that we are sometimes, as directors, guilty of portraying or asking our actors to behave in certain ways that are perhaps not very morally acceptable. I’m not the only one.”

— Abbas Kiarostami

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

— Abbas Kiarostami

92. “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

93. “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

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

— Abbas Kiarostami

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

— Abbas Kiarostami

96. “If God has provided us with one thing, it’s the power of imagination. Dreaming clearly has some function, otherwise why would we be capable of it? The ugliness of the world lies before us, whether we want to look or not, but we filter things and dig into our inhibitions, as we dream and fantasize, we come to learn about our true feelings and beliefs and desires. By doing so, we temporarily escape real life.”

— Abbas Kiarostami

97. “Art is the experience of what you’ve felt inside.”

— Abbas Kiarostami

98. “I like my half-finished cinema to be vague. I like ambiguities. I am a filmmaker who asks audiences to make more effort than usual, to bask in temporary confusion, and by so doing express themselves, which is why I lose some viewers along the way. For m, film is about enticing people to look and ask questions, to take the trouble to consider cinema as something other than just entertainment.”

— Abbas Kiarostami

99. “It’s said that in the beginning was the word, but for me the beginning is always an image. When I think about a conversation, it always starts with images. And what I love about photography is the inscription of a single moment: it’s completely ephemeral. You take the photograph, and one second later, everything has changed.”

— Abbas Kiarostami

100. “Look at the world anew each day. Clean out your eyes. Your job is to offer insights, so continue to frame everyday things in new ways that help you, and us, see them differently.”

— Abbas Kiarostami