“Actually, the only thing I regret is not making more underground films and bringing them with me as historical documents.”

I use humour a lot. My foundation is tragic, but my appearance is humorous.

I always loved music, and I always wanted to make a film about it, but I could never do it because of the censorship that was around.

In Kurdistan, theres a lot of hardship – a lot of wars, a lot of bitter and difficult lifestyles. And witnessing all those made me a director.

I had no education in filmmaking. I started with a 8mm camera. I made 34 films, and little by little I gained more experience in filming.

Im free – but Im also not free because there are millions of young people living in Iran. A filmmaker can only do a little.

You need a team that speaks your language.

I used to believe that people are only born once, but now I feel I have been reborn, like I was given a new life. I see myself as a child, full of energy and hope.

I love music, I make films with music, I eat with music, I sleep with music, I think with music. Music makes me dream, it strengthens my creativity.

For me, its better to live without looking over your shoulder, worrying about who is controlling your phone, maybe poisoning your food.

History must repeat itself because we pay such little attention to it the first time.

My likely historical significance is a terrible burden. ~ Calvin

To accept the story of the Arab destruction of the library of Alexandria, one must explain how it is that so dramatic an event was unmentioned and unnoticed not only in the rich historical literature of medieval Islam.

We need a type of theatre which not only releases the feelings, insights and impulses possible within the particular historical field of human relations in which the action takes place, but employs and encourages those thoughts and feelings which help transform the field itself.

Most actors are drawn towards historical tellings because it’s one of the most simple forms of storytelling.

Anyway I read more contemporary poetry than contemporary fiction so my mind goes first to a kind of crass “conceptualism” that repeats vanguard gestures of the past minus the politics and historical context.

I’m not really frightened by experimenting – that’s the main thing. I really like mixing very old beautiful pieces that are from thrift shops or that have some historical value with quite new futuristic things.

It’s very much to do with how I’m feeling … I love to be experimental and use eclectic mismatched things and put them together to see what third entity is created!