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" 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. "

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" 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. "

Rithy Panh

Revolution

Over

People

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

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

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

" I like people who have the capacity to forget. I think that to forget is a good thing. Forgetting is good. But sometimes I cannot. For me, I cannot. "

Rithy Panh

Forget

Think

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

" A country cannot develop without a strong identity. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

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

Rithy Panh

Pain

Down

" 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. "

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

Rithy Panh

Tell

Generation

" 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. "

" 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

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

Rithy Panh

Away

Escape

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

Rithy Panh

Ethics

Reality

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

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

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

Rithy Panh

Transform

Way

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

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