Abbas Kiarostami

"I have always thought that the audience is much more creative than we credit them to be and I feel they can do a lot with the stories we pose for them. The only difference between my spectators and I is that I have a camera in hand and they don't. I don't see the spectators as any less creative that I am, and believe that sometimes, left to themselves, they can come up with a better ending than I can! Often people go to see a film with the expectation that a story will be told. I do not like this arrangement where there is a dichotomy between me, as the storyteller, and the spectator, as the one sitting there and watching the story as such. I prefer to believe that the spectators are much more intelligent and actually see it as unfair that I get the chance to captivate them for two hours telling them the story, ending it the way I say it must end and so on. So I actually want to give them more credit by involving them and distributing the sense of belonging between myself and the spectator, so I leave it open and that way s/he could end it the way he/she wants to end it."