The starting point and the ending point are nothing but two arbitrary choices. You make them as in soccer games, where they chose that it's 90 minutes, not less and not more. But the choices are the responsibility of the filmmaker. You have to choose to join the story at an arbitrary point, and you leave it at an arbitrary point.

I have no advice for anyone on how to live.

It's not so much a question of whether we've shot it through 35mm or digital video; what is important is whether the audience accepts it as real.

If I do continue to have the opportunity to work in Iran, that's very much what I'd prefer to do.

If you are a businessman or a politician in Iran, you can get a visa as quickly as you ask for it.

My last experience of film-making was Tickets, a three-episode film in Italy, the third of which is directed by myself. It's not for me to judge whether it's a good film or a bad film, but what I could say is that nobody had a cultural or linguistic issue with what was produced.

I really enjoy listening to stories. I remember them and keep them in my mind.