You are putting yourself in serious danger...' I think that I preferred to put myself in serious danger rather than confront my shame. My shame at not having become someone, the shame of not having made my parents proud after all the sacrifices they had made for me. The shame of having become a mediocre nihilist.

The Germans sell chemical weapons to Iran and Iraq. The wounded are then sent to Germany to be treated. Veritable human guinea pigs.

There are things that I love in Iranian cinema and things that I don't. In Iranian cinema, you have to use metaphor because you are living under a dictatorship.

I think that all stories - if you make movies about zombies and aliens - it has always to do with your personal story. If not directly, it is about your fears, your obsessions, things like that.

I became the voice of a generation in a very surprising way, because many Iranians recognize themselves in it. But that is not what I wanted.

People are so afraid to say the word "comic". It makes you think of a grown man with pimples, a ponytail and a big belly. Change it to "graphic novel" and that disappears.

I don't consider myself as a feminist but more a humanist.