- Director | April 18, 1964 -
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.
Rithy Panh
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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.
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'S21' was a film about corporeal memory and how the same gestures repeated many times years earlier can be reawakened.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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A country cannot develop without a strong identity.
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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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