But also, there are no films being made about Afghanistan.

Because there is so little room for expression otherwise, a lot of people love cinema because they find it a way of expressing themselves.

Usually people like to categorise artists. With my films, I categorise people: if I know which one of my movies you like, I can tell which kind of a person you are.

When we began filming, these people had legs, but as we were filming, they had been injured and they were brought to the hospital to have their legs amputated, and that's where we found them and asked them to come and be part of the film.

The Buddhas had to be destroyed by the Taliban to get the world thinking about Afghanistan.

From my films, you can at least learn about Iran, you can get a sense of the history and the society. But no such films have been made about Afghanistan, so you really can't know much about it.

I was in jail four and a half years. When I came out, I continued the same struggle against injustice, but instead of using weapons, I began to use art and cinema.