Bahman Ghobadi

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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 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.”

“I love music; I come from a region of Kurdistan that is a base for music.”

“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.”

“For me, it's better to live without looking over your shoulder, worrying about who is controlling your phone, maybe poisoning your food.”

“I'm very much interested in music specifically and wanted to make a film about it, but not in an atmosphere of censorship.”

“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.”

“I'm free - but I'm also not free because there are millions of young people living in Iran. A filmmaker can only do a little.”

“When you want to make a film abroad, you need producers and people who support you. You need a team that speaks your language.”

“I had seen some films made about the underground music world in Tehran, and most of them were short documentaries about 30 or 40 minutes long. And I always wondered why they weren't publicized more. Really, their only flaw was they were short documentaries.”

“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.”

“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.”

“I went to underground music studios. In the studios, I learned that you can make a movie without a permit.”

“If I hadn't turned out to be a filmmaker, I would have been a musician.”

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