Mano Khalil Quotes

• The problem of ISIS is not recent. Ever since the Second World War, people in this region have been, and are today, living under brutal dictatorships governed by nationalistic fervor. As for the Kurdish question: nobody from the Arab world is serious about fighting ISIS. It's only the Kurdish people who are standing firm against ISIS. And I think Europe, the United States, and most other democratic countries of the world are beginning to look at the Kurds in another way. The Kurds are really becoming their partners in the region.

  Mano Khalil

  País, Guerra, Lucha

  Fuente: www.guernicamag.com

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• 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.

  Mano Khalil

  Teenager, Father, School

  Fuente: www.guernicamag.com

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• Now the world believes in Kurds, as they have become partners in that region. The West doesn't believe in the Iraqi government - not in Maliki before or Abadi today. It doesn't believe in Syria in any way, nor in Iran. So the Kurds could maybe work together with the Western world to bring stability to the region. It's a nice change, coming as it is after hundreds of years of the struggle of the Kurds.

  Mano Khalil

  Nice, Struggle, Believe

  Fuente: www.guernicamag.com

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• I dream about going back, but I know that it isn't easy. Thirty years of being in Europe has changed my life. I am not the Kurd from Syria anymore as I was before. Kurdistani Syria developed somewhere, and I developed elsewhere. I think we will not find each other easily again. If I go back I will be a foreigner in my own country now. But of course it remains a dream to make another movie in Syria, and I am waiting for that opportunity.

  Mano Khalil

  Dream, Country, Opportunity

  Fuente: www.guernicamag.com

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• When I see that people are touched, and they feel solidarity with him, I say to myself, "I made a little change."

  Mano Khalil

  People, Solidarity

  Fuente: www.guernicamag.com

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• Even if you make a movie about a criminal locked up in prison, you may not support him as a criminal, but you have to like him on some level. You have to love your protagonist and respect him. He will only open his heart to you when he believes that you are treating him with respect, with love. Only then will there be no more walls between the filmmaker and the protagonist.

  Mano Khalil

  Wall, Love You, Believe

  Fuente: www.guernicamag.com

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• 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.

  Mano Khalil

  Reality, People, Important

  Fuente: www.guernicamag.com

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• 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.

  Mano Khalil

  Language, Film, Prove

  Fuente: www.guernicamag.com

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• 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.

  Mano Khalil

  Wall, Laughter, Real

  Fuente: www.guernicamag.com

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• Con la ficción, estás creando un mundo imaginario. Y puede ser un proceso muy mecánico. En una película de ficción, creas los personajes que se convierten en "personas reales" cuando están frente a la cámara. Cuando dejas de rodar, cambian de vestuario y se convierten en otra persona. Y la gente tiende a creer más en el documental que en la ficción. Aunque la ficción esté basada en una historia real, todo el mundo dirá: "Oh, sólo son actores".

  Mano Khalil

  Real, Believe, Character

  Fuente: www.guernicamag.com

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• 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.

  Mano Khalil

  Reality, Opinion, Speak

  Fuente: www.guernicamag.com

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• If my friends are going to the mountains with guns to fight, I will continue that fight, not with guns but with a camera.

  Mano Khalil

  Fighting, Gun, Mountain

  Fuente: www.guernicamag.com

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• Sentado en la oscuridad del cine, pude ver otro mundo. Este mundo imaginario era un refugio para muchos de nosotros. Por supuesto, las películas estaban controladas y censuradas por el régimen. Pero yo seguía pensando, por aquel entonces, que tal vez hacer películas sería bueno para mí. Pensé en expresarme a través de este medio y en hacer algo por los kurdos. Las opciones estaban claras: o trabajaba como abogado bajo el régimen del Baaz o hacía películas de forma independiente.

  Mano Khalil

  Darkness, World, Lawyer

  Fuente: www.guernicamag.com

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• I am not saying that the Kurds are angels, but they have suffered too much. These people have a right to live in their country. The right just to be where they are, in freedom. And now the world has started believing in this. Kurdistan is coming. In some five years, I hope, we will have a flag in New York, hanging with all the other flags.

  Mano Khalil

  Country, Believe, Angel

  Fuente: www.guernicamag.com

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