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.
Interpretation
Film-makers seek shared experiences among cultures, while politicians often highlight divisions for personal gain.
Abbas Kiarostami emphasizes the role of film-makers in fostering understanding and unity among diverse cultures. Unlike politicians who may thrive on highlighting differences and conflicts, artists aim to uncover and celebrate the commonalities that connect humanity, suggesting that cinema can bridge cultural divides and enhance empathy.
In practice
This quote can be used in a film festival speech to encourage cross-cultural collaboration.
Digital photography is, by definition, unfinished. You don't feel that after every 24 or 36 shots you have to change your film - you know you can go on for ever if you want. You can see the result immediately, and find out if your original idea is worth going on with or not, whether it can be corrected, whether it can be improved.
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.
From my very first movie, what was my concentration, my inspiration, was I didn't want to narrate something, I didn't want to tell a story. I wanted to show something, I wanted for them to make their own story from what they were seeing.
Good cinema is what we can believe, and bad cinema is what we can't believe.
Cinema gives you the opportunity to be both a grandparent and a grandchild whereas in life you cannot be both at the same time.
The calling of art is to extract us from our daily reality, to bring us to a hidden truth that's difficult to access - to a level that's not material but spiritual.
When the mind soars in pursuit of the things conceived in space...it pursues emptiness; but when man dives deep within himself, he experiences the fullness of existence.
Coincidence is the language of the stars, for something to happen, so many forces have to be put into action.
The next step in human evolution is to transcend thought. This is now our urgent task. It doesn't mean not to think anymore, but simply not to be completely identified with thought, possessed by thought.
Not only do words infect, egotize, narcotize, and paralyze, but they enter into and colour the minutest cells of the brain. . . .
Man, whatever else he may be, is primarily a practical being, whose mind is given him to aid in adapting him to this world's life
The Frenchman works until he can play. The American works until he can’t play; and then thanks the devil, his master, that he is donkey enough to die in harness. But the Englishman, as he has since become, works until he can pretend that he never worked at all.
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