Unless you're trying to make a movie on the sly, there's no way to get around this. If you want to use public spaces, film on the streets, have the cooperation of the police, you have to have a permit.

If you give an answer to your viewer, your film will simply finish in the movie theatre. But when you pose questions, your film actually begins after people watch it. In fact, your film will continue inside the viewer.

I think it's insulting to an audience to make them sit and watch a film and then give them a message in one sentence.

Doing interviews about my films really bothers me sometimes, because I have to speak directly and clearly about things I've intended to keep ambiguous, and in a way, I feel like I'm betraying my film.

I lived in Paris for two years with my family. I would roam the streets of Paris during the day for a few hours in the subway, on the streets, and I listened to the French language, and I got a sense of the rhythm and the melody of the language.

I feel that it means a lot to the people of Iran that my film is represented at the Oscars, and it makes me happy to bring them that joy, that I'm representing them and that I'm able to give them that element of pleasure to be the envoy from Iran. It's a very pleasant thing.