I'm still very grateful to digital cameras in general, but I didn't have this feeling with the RED one.

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

In the total darkness, poetry is still there, and it is there for you.

The film [Close Up] made itself, to a large extent. The characters involved were very real, I wasn't directing the actors so much as being directed by them. So it was a very particular film.

We don't look at each other [in the car], but instead do so only when we want to. We're allowed to look around without appearing rude. We have a big screen in front of us and side views. Silence doesn't seem heavy or difficult.

I had intended to make another film, called Pocket Money, which was to be about children at a school. I was very much intrigued by the story [of Close Up] - it came into my dreams and I was very much influenced by it. So I called my producer and asked that we put aside Pocket Money and start something else, and he agreed.

Cinema seats make people lazy. They expect to be given all the information. But for me, question marks are the punctuation of life.