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.

I don't have very complete scripts for my films. I have a general outline and a character in my mind, and I make no notes until I find the character who's in my mind in reality.

I don't like reverse-angle shots - I find them very fake and very untruthful to the viewer.

I am still very surprised that I managed to make that film [Close Up]. When I actually look back on that film, I really feel that I was not the director but instead just a member of the audience.

It is a very important film, Life And Nothing More, in that what was filmed was inspired by a journey I had made just three days after an earthquake. And I speak not only of the film itself but also of the experience of being in that place, where only three days before 50,000 people had died.

In my experience as a director, I think there is obviously something of the way men - maybe that's a common point with Shirin - the way men see women in the film, and the way these two characters see each other.

I think being someone in love is so hard to define, so temporary, because retrospectively we often deny the state in which we were in love.