The experience of life teaches us that being like someone in love is more real, because everything is uncertain.

I spend a lot of time doing carpentry. Sometimes there is nothing that gives me the contentment that sawing a piece of wood does.

Having an international voice is not really about whether we speak Persian or any other language.

The kind of sleep that I had during my own film [Certified Copy] screening in Cannes is different. It's not because of the specificity of the film. It was because of my relationship as an author to this film. Usually when I take my films to festivals, I feel incredibly anxious about them. I wonder how it will be received, how the audience will react. I feel deeply responsible for them. Whereas this time, I didn't have that responsibility on my shoulders.

What I am trying to say is that it is not without any value. The value of copies is that they can direct us towards the original. I was recently at the Louvre Museum and I was filming people who were viewing the Mona Lisa. I noticed the number of ordinary people, astonished, mouths agape, standing still for long stretches looking at the work, and I wondered, "Where does this come from? Are these people all art connoisseurs?" They are like me; through the years, we've seen this work in our schoolbooks or art history books, but when we stand before the original, we hold our breath.

I think, just as footballers play better at home, maybe film-makers, too, create better at home, even though the rules of football are the same wherever you go.

My films have been progressing towards a certain kind of minimalism, even though it was never intended. Elements which can be eliminated have been eliminated.