I didn't just see myself as a film director here [in Life And Nothing More], but also as an observer of people who had been condemned to death.
Close-Up is a very particular film in my oeuvre. It's a film that was made in a very particular way; mainly because I didn't really have the time to think about how to go about making the film.
I don't ask my students to have studied film or any education in general. What I ask them is to come and sit and tell me a story, and the way they choose it and tell it, for me, the best criteria for whether they are right for making films. There's nothing more important than being able to tell your story orally.
I don't generally derive my stories from novels. I try to turn into film things I have felt or experienced.
I am still very surprised that I managed to make that film [Close Up]. When I actually look back on that film, I really feel that I was not the director but instead just a member of the audience.
It was a film that I knew, that I had seen, that I was familiar with, but I wasn't anxious about it at any point during the screening. I snoozed twice, and this is something I couldn't have imagined that I would feel detached, as I did with this film [Certified Copy].
Close-Up has affected later films that I've made.
I think Woody Allen is Woody Allen, and no matter where he goes he still makes his Woody Allen films.
![I didn't just see myself as a film director here [in Life And Nothing More], but also as an observer of people who had been condemned to death.](http://cdn.quoteddaily.com/images/abbas-kiarostami/i-didnt-just-see-myself-as-a-film-director-here-in-life-and-nothing-more-but-also-as-an-observer.jpg)
