Maybe more than a teller, I am a story listener. I really enjoy listening to stories. I remember them and keep them in my mind. All of my films are a collection of small stories that have been told to me.

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

This [the earthquake] was a very big influence on me, and the issue of life and death from then on does recur in my films.

When the film [Certified Copy] was in the Cannes Festival, I realized that the fact of having it shot in a different culture, in a different language, in a different setting, that wasn't mine and that I didn't belong to, gave me a totally different relationship to the film. When I was sitting in the audience during the official screening in Cannes, I didn't feel that it was my film.

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.

I think Woody Allen is Woody Allen, and no matter where he goes he still makes his Woody Allen films.

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