“I think it was [Jean-Luc] Godard who said that life is nothing but a bad copy of film, but then our ambition must be to make better films and better shapes of forms that are given in life.”

People have curiosity, they have intelligence, they have interest in understanding their peers. But producers and directors of cinema have decided that the seats in the theaters have been made to transform people’s minds to lazy minds.

I do think that we are sometimes, as directors, guilty of portraying or asking our actors to behave in certain ways that are perhaps not very morally acceptable. I’m not the only one.

Directors don’t always create, they can also destroy with too many demands.

I do believe in [Robert] Bresson’s method of creation through omission, not through addition.

Using non-actors has its own rules and really requires that you allow them to do their own thing.

As film-makers, it is very important for us to find common ground between cultures, and maybe that’s less the case for politicians who benefit more from finding the conflicts and differences between us.

I think that in life, being is nothing but an illusion. If we acknowledge that and accept the fact that we are in between states, that we are moving, and this movement is the nature of our lives

A movie is about human beings, about humanity.

The Iranian government as a whole has no relationship with my films. They’re not particularly interested, perhaps this kind of cinema is not very interesting to them.

My way of expression is full of complications and mystery because that’s my perception of life.

I think I really produce my best work in Iran.

The only thing that I can do is hold a mirror in front of men and women, in front of the viewer in the theater, to reflect. There is nothing but reflection that I could intend to offer the viewer of the film.

I really enjoy listening to stories. I remember them and keep them in my mind.

This [the earthquake] was a very big influence on me, and the issue of life and death from then on does recur in my films.

A work of art doesn’t exist outside the perception of the audience.

The film [Close Up] made itself, to a large extent. The characters involved were very real, I wasn’t directing the actors so much as being directed by them. So it was a very particular film.