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.

I'm not playing myself. It's a symbolic situation, where I want to introduce a fascist behind the table. I couldn't have had anybody else do that; for it to be successful, I had to do it myself.

From 7 in the morning to 11 at night, I was reading. I don't think one can find any other time in one's life to be left alone so much to read in peace like that.

Rumi, who is one of the greatest Persian poets, said that the truth was a mirror in the hands of God. It fell, and broke into pieces. Everybody took a piece of it, and they looked at it and thought they had the truth.

If I make two films in a year, they'll be different. This is my style - I can't have just one way.

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