In order to be universal, you have to be rooted in your own culture.

I was mentioning with the digital camera, maybe this new fashion of filmmaking gives a closer look of what life may be like. But it's still nothing but a copy.

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

I have received the digital camera as a blessing. It has really changed my life as a filmmaker, because I don't use my camera anymore as a camera. I don't feel it as a camera. I feel it as a friend, as something that doesn't make an impression on people, that doesn't make them feel uncomfortable, and that is completely forgotten in my way of approaching life and people and film.

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

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

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.