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

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" We need a peaceful, modern Cambodia. We need to achieve that. It's not easy. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

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

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" People of my generation did not like very much to tell what we lived through during the Khmer Rouge regime. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I left Cambodia when I was 12 or 13. I didn't really escape, but I needed to go away. "

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

" '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. "

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

" What I like to do with every film is to bring a form, like a cinematographic proposal. If you watch 'S21,' it's a form; 'Duch, Master of the Gates of Hell' is a different proposal. "

" Part of the Khmer Rouge project was not only to destroy individual people, but to destroy the very notion of the individual. I want to simply rebuild the stories of people - it's part of my fight against the Khmer Rouge agenda. "

" 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. "

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

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

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

" 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. "

" A country cannot develop without a strong identity. "

" 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. "

" 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'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. "