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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. "

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" 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. "

Rithy Panh

Show

You

View

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

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

" 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. "

" 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 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. "

" 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

" 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. "

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

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

Rithy Panh

Filmmaker

Obvious

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

Rithy Panh

Away

Escape

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

Rithy Panh

Pain

Down

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

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

" 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

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

" 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. "

Rithy Panh

Love

Need

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

" 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. "

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

Rithy Panh

Poetry

After

" 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. "

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

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

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