It's important for me to not historicize. I work to diffuse the issue of identity and to intensify identification. You have to lose your authority in the making of a film to achieve this. The film is about me being… — Elia Suleiman Copy Share Image
If a person just takes what is socio-political and geographical from the themes of my films then that's not enough. But if the person goes out of the theatre and, for example, makes the dinner he's eating later on, extra… — Elia Suleiman Copy Share Image
The problem is that when you grow absolutely certain that all authorities are corrupt, then that would include the Palestinian authorities as well. — Elia Suleiman Copy Share Image
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… — Elia Suleiman Copy Share Image
The desire to express in an art form and to compose a tableau and vignette whether it's humorous, burlesque, or poetic comes simply from a desire to compose an image for cinema. It is not my fault that when I go to Ramallah there is a checkpoint and therefore it enters my film. Tell me a way to avoid that… — Elia Suleiman Copy Share
Silence can be intimidating, sometimes provocative, sometimes a form of resistance because it dislocates. — Elia Suleiman Copy Share Image
Israel, the Israelis, and the rest of the world have been brainwashed. They don't think of pre-1948, they have no idea Palestinians were in Israel, who we were before '48. As if we were born in 1948 according to them. They have no notion that we had a country, houses, rebelled against the Ottomans and the British. They think history… — Elia Suleiman Copy Share
To think of a film from the point of view of a tank barrel is already so inhumanly positioned. This is when film can… — Elia Suleiman Copy Share Image
Living more intensely, more lovingly, with more camaraderie, that is in itself resistance. — Elia Suleiman Copy Share Image
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… — Elia Suleiman Copy Share Image
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,… — Elia Suleiman Copy Share Image
I am more at peace than I've ever known myself to be. My connectedness to the world is more intense. I am more attentive… — Elia Suleiman Copy Share Image
I don't particularly have a good memory. I think history is many times just the text written by the victors. I wanted to counter… — Elia Suleiman Copy Share Image
There are a lot of questions that come out of the silence. It is so close to the infinite. — Elia Suleiman Copy Share Image
