I think violence can never be justified. At the same time, nobody’s culture or beliefs should be insulted, that’s not something I can accept either. But I cannot justify or accept any violence at all.

Using non-actors has its own rules and really requires that you allow them to do their own thing.

I think it was [Jean-Luc] Godard who said that life is nothing but a bad copy of film, but then our ambition must be to make better films and better shapes of forms that are given in life.

The day we run out of petrol is the day Iran will be free.

The Iranian government as a whole has no relationship with my films. They're not particularly interested, perhaps this kind of cinema is not very interesting to them.

A digital camera does have many advantages and I was a believer that digital video would be a big influence on film-making.

I'm not sure that my films show the reality of life in Iran; we show different aspects of life. Iran is a very extensive and expansive place, and sometimes, even for us who live there, some of the realities are very hard to comprehend.