Top 40 Rithy Panh Quotes

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.

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

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.

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

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

The most beautiful thing in Cambodia isn’t the country – it’s the Cambodian people.

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.

I have never been political in a partisan sense.

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

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.

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

Pain is handed down from one generation to the next.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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 must be capable of writing our own history.

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.

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 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.

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.

A country cannot develop without a strong identity.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.