Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

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

Related Quotes:

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

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

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

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

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

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

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

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

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

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

" 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 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. "

" '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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

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