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

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" 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. "

" '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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

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

" 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. "

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

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

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

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

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

" I have only one life, and I can't do all. If I do one thing well, I'm happy. "

" When the Khmer Rouge reached Phnom Penh, the first thing they did was to evacuate the population. Then they took over. The point of a revolution is to bring justice to the people, so even if you don't have proof of sabotage, you manufacture it. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

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

" 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. "

" If you can keep something very personal, like a song, like a color, like a story, deep in your heart, then nobody can destroy that. Nobody can destroy your imagination; nobody can destroy your love. "

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

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

" 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. "

" A country cannot develop without a strong identity. "

" 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. "

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