“I think the secret of memoirs is keeping those parts of yourself off the page, which makes what you do share more valuable.” ThinkingSecretShareValuableMemoir Author:Damian Barr
“People ask, "Do you enjoy acting?" But you only have those specific few hours to do a scene, and then you drive home and wait for six months to find out how it went. You can't go back and put in a new idea. Filming is about continuing to be alert and to think, and I find it quite exhausting. Certainly I would say that fear is a part of that.” PeopleThinkingHomeWaitingEnjoyHoursActingScene Author:Eddie Redmayne
“After school, I went to Damascus to study law and history, which I didn't really like. I didn't like history, in particular. In Syria, the regime was trying to present to us a distorted version of the past. Assad was shown as the father of history. So I decided to shift to film, which was something I had always loved as a teenager.” TryingSchoolPastFilmFatherStudyTeenagerSyriaAfter School Author:Mano Khalil
“Sitting in the darkness of the cinema, I got to see another world. This imaginary world was a refuge for many of us. Of course, the films were controlled and censored by the regime. But I still thought, around this time, that maybe making films would be good for me. I thought of expressing myself through this medium, and of doing something for the Kurds. The options were clear: either I'd work as a lawyer under the Baath regime or make movies independently.” WorldFilmDarknessBe GoodLawyerImaginaryRefugeImaginary World Author:Mano Khalil
“If my friends are going to the mountains with guns to fight, I will continue that fight, not with guns but with a camera.” FightingMountainGun Author:Mano Khalil
“It's difficult to make movies. For me it was easier, as a refugee in Switzerland, to make documentary films, because I didn't need a lot of money for it. The way I tell my story or my opinion would be very similar in both fiction and documentary forms. But I found I could speak more effectively to convey this brutal reality through documentary than I could through fiction.” RealityFilmSpeakDifficultOpinionBrutalRefugee Author:Mano Khalil
“With fiction, you are creating an imaginary world. And it can be a very mechanical process. In a fictional film, you create the characters who become "real people" when facing the camera. When you stop shooting, they change their costumes and become someone else. And people tend to believe in documentary more than fiction. Even if the fiction is based on a true story, everybody will say, "Oh, they're only actors."” PeopleWorldBelieveRealCharacterFilmImaginaryTrue StoryImaginary World Author:Mano Khalil
“Most people look at a feature film and say, "It's just a movie." For me there is no border or wall between fiction and documentary filmmaking. In documentaries, you have to deal with real people and their real feelings - you are working with real laughter, happiness, sadness. To try to reflect the reality is not the same as reality itself. That's why I think that making a good documentary is much harder than making a good feature film.” PeopleThinkingTryingRealFeelingsRealityFilmSadnessWallLaughterFilmmaking Author:Mano Khalil
“Documentary has been a way for me to establish myself as a filmmaker. It's my way of proving that I have a language, that I can say something through film.” FilmLanguageProveMy WayFilmmaker Author:Mano Khalil
“In all my documentaries, I have great respect for the people I work with. Really, I love them. And it's very important for me that when I finish a movie, they stay my friends. It's important that they won't feel that I in any way manipulated them or showed them in a bad light. I want to show them in all their reality - not as subjects but as people with flesh and blood - but I want to do this with all my respect.” PeopleImportantRealityGreat Respect Author:Mano Khalil
