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" 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. "

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" '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. "

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

" Film is subjective, and we must be careful with that. The kinds of films I love are those that observe, and I give possibility for people to talk. No need for me to tell people what to think - even when I make a film like 'S-21.' It's only one point of view. It's still a film; it's not a tribunal. "

" In this era of digital special effects, I think it's good to work with our hands and our hearts, to use water and clay, to dry it in the air from the sun. This brings you back to the element of life. "

" I didn't survive because I was stronger than others. I survived because my family and friends helped me to survive. They took my place. My job is to give them back their dignity, tell their story, and say their names. "

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

" I think that, as a filmmaker, you're always making the same film, regardless of how many different stories you tell. This is the case for me, whether I'm making documentaries or fiction films. "

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

" Every time you are getting ready to make a shot in a documentary film, you are asking yourself questions about your cinematographic approach. You are approaching the truth, but the image is never the truth itself. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" For the young generation, when they see that there is a film director from Cambodia to go on to be nominated, for them, a lot can change. I don't know another way to restore our identity if it's not art. "

" 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. "

" I'm not someone who has to make a film at any cost. I have to find the right way to make it or not at all. "

" As children, we did not have toys. We invented characters and animals; we invented stories. "

" I have never been political in a partisan sense. "

" It's better to live a world where you can hear different languages and sensibilities. "

" To me, form is not something that you can plan beforehand, especially for a documentary. You can't write it or sketch it. It requires a confrontation with reality, with history, with ethics and morals. After identifying good content, you have to find the right form to express that content. "

" Of course, when you're making a documentary, you don't have actors, but nonetheless, there is a writing process that does take place in the editing room. "

" 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. "

" We need creativity. We need more poetry after Auschwitz. "

" The most beautiful thing in Cambodia isn't the country - it's the Cambodian people. "

" I love archival films very much. I spent thousands of hours watching archive footage. Every time I see it, I see something. Sometimes I think I know this footage, but two years later, I see it again, and I see something new. "

" 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. "

" When I do feature films, I usually have a very strong sense of what I want to do. I have topics and subjects, so I go for it. I even know technically what I want to. But in the case of documentary, the story comes to me. "

" 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. "