Quotes from 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.

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

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

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

We must be capable of writing our own history.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

Pain is handed down from one generation to the next.

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.

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.