I'm not in the business of saying just one thing about just one place. If you only see Palestine in my films, then I've failed because then I'm just a provincial filmmaker. Elia Suleiman More Quotes by Elia Suleiman More Quotes From Elia Suleiman What cinema can do is the reordering of this reality from a certain chaos or from a certain order into an aesthetic dimension. Elia Suleiman cinema order reality I don't really know what people's perception about Palestinians.All art is to better life. We want to create hope and share with others. Create more pleasure, and object to despair. Really it's about that. A space where we can be less aggressed upon. Elia Suleiman space people art Living more intensely, more lovingly, with more camaraderie, that is in itself resistance. Elia Suleiman living-more camaraderie resistance I do not teach history in my films. I don't have a linear point of view or argument. What I do in my films is to live the human experience; human, whether in Nazareth or anywhere else in the world. Elia Suleiman nazareth views world Someone like myself is not from one place. I am in total identification with the New York, French, and Palestine experience and do not stop at the borders of identity. Elia Suleiman borders identity new-york Silence can be intimidating, sometimes provocative, sometimes a form of resistance because it dislocates. Elia Suleiman resistance silence sometimes The Time that Remains is a way of interpreting a certain ambience or emotion. These are the stories that my father told me over the course of fifteen or twenty years. I used to listen to him. From the cowardly part of my character, I'm always in fear of not telling the right story. I'm not interested in making epics. Elia Suleiman epic character father I try to use fiction in order to reduce the potentiality of something being true. We produce our own memories so I'm not sure of truth. Elia Suleiman trying memories order I'm trying to use Palestine as a microcosm of the world, but maybe the world is a microcosm of Palestine. We're living in a moment that has lost attachment to the ideology behind boundaries. Elia Suleiman attachment use trying I don't think there should be a Palestinian state because I don't believe in states. Elia Suleiman states believe thinking I think that whatever we express in terms of the potential truth is above all else about mobilizing ourselves for ourselves. We learn about ourselves as individuals. Identification with Palestine is universal and not restricted to geographic boundaries. It's a question of moral and ethical positions vis-à-vis all the injustices that surround us. Elia Suleiman injustice moral thinking A lot of narrative films leave you no space for anything else but eating popcorn. I want to go in the complete opposite direction. I have to evacuate all psychology, to be less a protagonist and more a presence. Elia Suleiman psychology space opposites I don't want what you see on the screen to just be a brief notion of pleasure but something that lingers. The idea is to have the images revisited. I want it to be something that also enhances the soul. I want the moment of pleasure to produce an attachment. Elia Suleiman attachment soul ideas There are a lot of questions that come out of the silence. It is so close to the infinite. Elia Suleiman infinite silence To think of a film from the point of view of a tank barrel is already so inhumanly positioned. This is when film can reveal itself scandalously. Elia Suleiman tanks views thinking I don't think you can strategize to be poetic and neither can you strategize to be funny. It is not a tool, it is itself - it comes from the moment, from the character, from the background, from the streets. Elia Suleiman tools character thinking It's a false illusion that we wake up thinking of who we are in terms of identity and that we are stuck in the boundaries of who we are nationalistically. Elia Suleiman wake-up identity thinking People in power tend to find poetry dangerous to them because it is dislocating, they can't catch it, can't control it. They prefer coherence, what's blunt and has clarity. Elia Suleiman clarity coherence people Palestine is about how we drink the water, whether we are being ecological or not. Palestine is our way of exercising our daily living. That's what's going to solve the problem of Palestine. It's also how we think of ourselves spiritually. This kind of disconnectedness is harmful to the person who is acting that way and is sometimes annoying. Elia Suleiman exercise water thinking To think that we are disconnected in some way serves the occupation whether it's through indifference or a distancing. It is a colonial approach of making you a subject and them the spectators. That is disturbing and counterproductive. And then suddenly they are surprised or find it alienating that the microcosmic effects of Palestine are happening in the U.S., France, and England, whether it's from the Islamic movements or immigration factors. Keeping a false purity of their countries will harm them eventually. Elia Suleiman islamic country thinking
