An Academy Award nomination is stuff dreams are made of.

My family restores my sense of ease and keeps me balanced.

I grew up listening to my grandfather's stories of our musical past. He would often talk about the orchestras that played at concerts and the musicians who played on Sunday evenings on street corners. By the time I grew up in the '80s, all of this was a thing of the past. I lived vicariously through his stories and often wondered what it would have felt like to have been part of his generation.

I want people to leave the theater with a greater understanding of the rich cultural heritage of Pakistan. "Song of Lahore" moves beyond headlines and stereotypes and shows that a vast majority of Pakistanis are not perpetrators of religious violence - they are victims of it. The beautiful cultural heritage of the region belies its image in the West as monolithically religious, intolerant, and violent.

It takes one second to ruin a woman's life.

I'd like to do a film in Canada, but it's too difficult. National Film Board funding takes too long, and there's too much paperwork; by the time the film is approved the topic is dead and gone.

An Academy Award nomination is stuff dreams are made of.