57 Quotes 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 Missing Picture' is about my story and my parents. Before this film, I never said 'I' in a film, so it is very personal.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

We need creativity. We need more poetry after Auschwitz.