Quotes

The most stupid thing in making independent movies is to copy Hollywood films as an independent film-maker. It is more stupid to try to make them with 2 Dollars and try your best to explain what all the pain you went through making that shot.

(on differences between a European and American film) European films are not successful cause they are constructed respecting a system. you get a loan from any small mafia type pizza restaurant owner around the block to make your film in the USA and the results are so vivid you can smell the pizza.

(Regarding how he chooses his concepts) I always made films with a (what if) factor, and the concepts seem original cause I have envisioned them with no respect to any films and or genres previously. I have never said to myself that now I am going to make a thriller. I made a movie and it became what it is. A complete confusion as a genre.

(On Seven Servants and the importance of Freedom, and Independence in creating creative works) Seven Servants is not a film. It is actually a conceptual work created in complete freedom of mind and has not been made respecting any standards. That is why it will always remain a question how to see, read and rate it? I will remain thankful forever to the freedom the west gave me for making all my works, even though no institute paid a penny to produce them anywhere in the west.

(After the screening of (Asudem) at Babylon cinema in Berlin) There was one source of light throughout the film and I used it as a brush of painting in the hands of Yangzom Brauen to light up the scenes (most brilliantly) with me.

The only difference between festivals and blockbuster theaters around each corner of all cities is that the festivals are showing films with cast and crew present. The Oscars is the only legitimate and grand festival of films in my opinion, and even there politics run the show more than the films.

Soon and due to the development of Digital movie making, film makers can end up dead and unknown as the great painters used to (and still do) while everybody will make a film soon, and again the true artist(s) with a grand concept and signature will remain the test of the time in the long run.

(on art films, and artists making abstract, intellectual movies at the screening of his own film Seven Servants in Locarno film festival) You do not have to be a philosopher to make a great movie.

There is no price on freedom. Even if I had 500 million Dollars, I would not have been able to make Breathful in my own home country Iran today. That is why I keep saying thanks to all the freedom I got in the west (Germany), and hope the free west would be brave enough to protect all this great moments in freedom with all its might, dedication, and yes, with even obsession against the evil of religious fanaticism threatening the whole planet at this very moment.

Artists can eventually end up making great movies (in all aspects, and after really having learned how to make films) but the best of professional film makers (who are not artists) will not be able to make an artistic film. I have seen the attempts and it looked more terrible than Ed Wood trying to make the Stalker.

There is only one type of movie worse than European films trying to copy American films, and that is Americans trying to make artistically, Intellectual European-like films, and worse yet, to hope to show up with it at European film festivals.

I will not only refuse to bow to the Mullah Regim in Iran, but rather will force them to bow their heads to freedom, civilization, arts and culture instead. I will make them learn that with my last drop of blood in my body.

It is not enough to do everything to reach peace and freedom when we do not have them, but to fight to keep them each minutes of our lives even when we did finally reach them both on earth one day.

[on duties of an artist explaining his own revolutionary methods of Amenic Film introduction] an artist could constantly influence and change the whole world to copy him, or her but then the true artist should constantly keep changing oneself to reach extreme perspectives.there is no end or limit to an artist visions in exploring infinite thoughts about creation and this whole thing called life on earth.that is also one of the reasons for making movies "Amenic" Style.

[on solidifying his Amenic Filmmaking process where the film is made first and then the "script" is written according to the finished film] Constantly change the whole world to become like you, and then, constantly change yourself.