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" Filming, for me, is a way of approaching, little by little - of getting closer and closer to my subject. And that subject itself can transform, or it can remain the same. "

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" When we pray to Buddha, we are not praying to a piece of stone, an image of Buddha, but we pray to the soul of Buddha behind the piece of stone. The souls of the people who are dead now are still with us. "

Rithy Panh

Soul

People

Stone

" Cinema is not truth. Even when you make documentary films, you can choose to show this shot and not the other shot - this side and not the other side. In cinema, there's one truth - not 'the truth.' It's only 'my point of view.' Cinema is powerful because of that. "

" Sometimes if you can tell one personal story with a lot of sincerity, it can become a universal story. "

" With 'The Missing Picture,' we'd shot for a year and a half already when this idea of the clay figurine, the life that comes from the earth, came to me, and I changed everything. "

" In all of my films, there is a desire to testify, to interrogate the past. "

" 'The Missing Picture' came together slowly, after much provocation and by refusing different forms, until I finally found the right form. "

" To find money to make a film, you have to write maybe 50 pages to explain what you'd like to do, what the film will be, but everybody lies. Because he doesn't know what the film will be. Everybody writes 50 pages and sends it to a TV channel, a producer, to get money, but everybody lies. Or else your film is not interesting. "

" Pain is handed down from one generation to the next. "

Rithy Panh

Pain

Down

" Evil has always been here since the world began. Good is what is difficult. It is a work of every day. "

" Art is freedom. If you defend art, you defend freedom. "

" Cannes or Oscars is not only to bring happiness and recognition - they protect people like me. The world knows who you are. You can work. You can express. You can help other people. It's not only the star system. It's a symbol of freedom. "

" Clay is a very interesting and fundamental material: it's earth, it's water, and - with fire - it takes on form and life. "

" Art is giving to what you create a soul. "

" I wasn't predestined to be a filmmaker; this wasn't an obvious choice to me. "

Rithy Panh

Filmmaker

Obvious

" Evil has always been there; it's always a part of us. Evil is no big surprise. But what about the people who gave freely, who stood up for human dignity? Even in the most extreme and terrible situations, these acts of dignity existed. And for me, that is the banality of good. "

" I am lucky to be a film director. I can create, express. It proves that I am still alive and the Khmer Rouge did not succeed in destroying me. "

Rithy Panh

I Can

Lucky

" Totalitarians always want to kill culture. But imagine life without football, Faulkner, or Bob Dylan. It's not life. "

" 'The Missing Picture' is about my story and my parents. Before this film, I never said 'I' in a film, so it is very personal. "

" A country cannot develop without a strong identity. "

" Cambodia is not only a country of war, but also a country of culture. It's in our DNA. "

" I never want to be a film director - I want to be a teacher. "

" There is no book-learning culture in Cambodia. People do not read. The children do not read in school. Educators must come up with a policy that meets the great need for knowledge: using modern audiovisual methods that the young can connect with. "

" Every day, do small gestures of generosity! It does not mean go to Cambodia. Do it at home. If you do nothing at home, evil becomes normal. "

" When I make a film, I don't watch a lot of other films. I read a lot; I try to read poems, things that can liberate my human condition, that make me go away... I spend a lot of the time doing nothing, just concentrating on the subject. Sometimes I'll sit in my chair for two or three hours without doing anything. "

" The Khmer Rouge tried to delete everything. They tried to erase our past, our personality, our land, our sentiment. What we tried to do in 'The Missing Picture' was to reconstruct our identity, to bring it back to the people through cinema. "

" We must be capable of writing our own history. "

" When you screen a film like 'The Missing Picture,' it is not like watching TV. Watching TV is very solitary. When you watch cinema, you watch it together, and you talk about it after the screening. "

" It is only by reflecting on the past that one can create a better future. "

" The Khmer Rouge can't destroy me. I still have my imagination and am capable of making films. I am not locked up. "

" I love when you get the feeling of some social reality with a fictional film. "