Lying and corruption are in the Iranian society in all sense of the world, and if you do research about married women, you see that a lot of them tell you they get a lot of enjoyment from breaking the rules of corruption, because just for the fact that they break the rules, it makes them oppose the system.
In my view, the adults are the burnt generation of Iraq for whom nothing can be done. But for the children, we can worry now, we can talk about them, we can plan for them, we can get our protest heard by others.
I often ask myself, ‘Why is it that most of the lies come out of Islamic countries, and why is it that most of the social corruptions are in the Middle East and in these Islamic countries?’ The answer is, when you control something, when you suppress something, people try to do it another way.
I can travel with music. I close my eyes, and I can travel all over the world with music. And one after another, stories come to me, and I just record them.
I didn’t have the welfare. I didn’t have the proper education. I didn’t have these things. That’s why it’s almost like a complex in me that I want to explode myself in my films.
When you want to make a film abroad, you need producers and people who support you. You need a team that speaks your language.
It feels very, very good to make a film freely, to work without having to wait years for script approval, without looking over your shoulder.
I went to underground music studios. In the studios, I learned that you can make a movie without a permit.
I’m very much interested in music specifically and wanted to make a film about it, but not in an atmosphere of censorship.
In Kurdistan, there’s a lot of hardship – a lot of wars, a lot of bitter and difficult lifestyles. And witnessing all those made me a director.
I am really bothered when I see my friends facing problems back in Iran, but I tell them that not all the doors are shut.
In Iranian cinema, all the lying takes place before making the film. In order to be able to make the film, you have to lie.
Actually, the only thing I regret is not making more underground films and bringing them with me as historical documents.