Hussein Chalayan Quotes

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 have always believed that directing a film is like telling a story. You have to tell it well so that it is appreciated.

The cinema is there to heighten the imagination; I have always tried to make sure it does so.

A movie is made for an audience and a film is made for both the audience and the film-makers.

Film has the potential of allowing me to explore my own ideas, which I find very attractive.

This is indeed not only relevant to Documentary but is evident is most type of film making. The film often mirrors the experience, understanding and politics of the director.

I'm always happy and most at home on the stage. I love film and television, but I love live performance... your immediacy with the audience, it makes all the difference in the world.

Look, I'm just a storyteller. When I make a film, I never want the film to become a vehicle of social propaganda.

I'm interested in making films that make people think.

I love making movies, but there's nothing like being in front of an audience.

I fell in love with film and its potential. The idea of putting one image next to another image and creating meaning blew my mind.

Theater is still a medium which attracts young writers. You'd think that it would be all over by now, with television and film. But it's not.

Whatever I do, I'm always struggling to create a visceral experience. With my music, I'm more of a live performer these days. And film is such a different thing. It's where people sit in a dark theater. I want them to feel me as viscerally as if they were at a live show.

I definitely love performing live because there are moments of spontaneity. And as much as you're performing on stage, I feel like the audience is performing, too.

Theater's wonderful because it's visceral, and it's happening in front of you, but you never get that close. So the close-up is a great privilege of film.

I'm not the first one to say it, but that time onstage is a heightened sense of present tense.

Each time you present a tour, you're faced with these questions of, 'How do you want to present visual information? How do you want to take the music that we're making on stage and visualize that?'

The people I met for the first time in the period when I was making films like 'Tum Bin,' 'Ra.One,' 'Dus,' 'Cash' would often remark that I was very unlike the person who had made those films. This is not the best thing for a film-maker to hear because your film should reflect your personality, thinking, philosophy and character.

There's nothing like performing in front of a live crowd and just having people literally react to whatever it is you do, and there's nothing better than when you get that connection with the audience.

Of course theater will always be associated intimately to literature, but the themes or whatever have to penetrate you by the senses. Theater is a sensuous experience, and that's its main difference from film or any other dramatic art.

I make films to explore concepts and raise questions, not tell the audience what to think.

Films are made for audience's appreciation but films are also made for artistic satisfaction.

Personally, I don't want to do theater that's very stylish, when it's just stories on stage that are basically the same as TV or film.

When you're on Broadway, what's kind of the whole point is that you find something new in the show each night.

Makin' records is one art form and playin' live is another. It's like the difference between makin' a movie and doin' theatre.