57 Quotes by Rithy Panh

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.

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

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.

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 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 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.

A country cannot develop without a strong identity.

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

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.