Top 61 Quotes & Sayings by Rithy Panh

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

'S21' was a film about corporeal memory and how the same gestures repeated many times years earlier can be reawakened.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

A country cannot develop without a strong identity.

We need creativity. We need more poetry after Auschwitz.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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

Pain is handed down from one generation to the next.

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

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

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 must be capable of writing our own history.

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.

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.

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 have never been political in a partisan sense.

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.

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

'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.

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.

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

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

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

You cannot build a cultural identity without the images and sounds of your culture. Most countries in the third world - poor countries - they've lost their memories. Because everyday, films and cultural artifacts disappear. Film is also a memory - of the character and imagination of a culture.

As Buddhists, statues are more than simply pieces of stone to us. We believe the statue of the Buddha has a kind of soul and is the Buddha in some sense. This is why we can pray to it. Clay is a very interesting and fundamental material - it's earth, it's water and - with fire - it takes on form and life. In fact, what is art? Art is giving to what you create a soul. That's why it is said God is like an artist.

When you make a film and it wins some award at a very select, very difficult festival such as Cannes, it's good for your fellow film directors and fellow citizens too. Because it shows them that this way is a real possibility.