and Austria, and France, and is this movie a hundred percent

autobiographical? Or is this a fictional story

inspired by your ordeals?

I think the second thing is

is better put because you know it's certainly not the documentary about my life,

and it certainly is subjective point of view, and

is certainly that when you may cast script, you know, part of that storytelling

we should never forget it. So if I pretend that it is 100%

autobiographical that means that a dog looks like a dog that I draw,

that this thing I said exactly I said this thing--

Which is not true. Of course is a part of storytelling-- is based on my own

experiences and then you know

you have to me make a story. I think even documentaries they are...

they are part fictional. As soon as you you make a story you have to have some

fiction otherwise it doesn't work.

Whats inspired you to create the Persepolis graphic novels?

Well you know that was really my answer to the words--to the word

because you know the two times that left Iran in eighty four and in ninety four

I heard so many crazy things about ... Iran.

People they wear saying and I was right this is not like this this is not like that.

And you know...

that is a choice reality that you see on the TV channel.

That I don't say doesn't exist, it does, but it is many other realities that

we never see, so you know, that was really to say

this..I will give you at least another point of view, is a very personal one

just engage my own person, but this is it and

so that was the beginning, how I started it, and of course you know I

I wrote it five years after I

left Iran the second time. Because you know, I needed to have distance with

the story. I didn't have to be angry anymore. I didn't have any violence

in me, because you know you cannot answer to the stupidity

by stupid, you can not answer to the violence by violence. So it's extremely important to take a step back

and look at the thing. So that is what I tried to do

and that was the reason I made it in the first place.

Then how did the graphic novels then turn into a movie?

That was a mess because I never wanted to do that,

and I always thought it was a very bad idea, I still do. Is that because you're

a good cartoonist that you become a good movie-maker. And it's not that because something work

as a comic that it will work as a movie.

But knowing that was very good because I knew the danger of the project,

that you shouldn't make an adaptation, we had a translation.

We had to really make an adaptation. That means forgetting about the book

taking the material and turning it into a cinematographic

language. But I made it because a friend of mine wanted to become a producer,

you know,

and I was like, you know, I would like to work with my best friend Vincent, and I want a studio in

Paris, and I want this, and I want that--

and he say, "Yeah, okay." And I was like, shit, now I have to do it so

That is how it started.

I found this film very...

insightful in providing a perspective from an every day

Iranians point of view which is not common

in film. Was was at the point? To get a woman's point of view

who lives in Iran--

It's not a woman or a man.

You know, the fact is that I am a woman, you know, if I was not a woman I

would be a man. It is a very personal point of view. Since I didn't want that to become

political, historical, or sociological statement

I had to write it in my name. I had to put it in my name.

It happens that I'm a woman, but it's a human point of view, and really

if there is one message in this movie is the humanistic message

is that human being, anywhere, is the same.

And they have the right to live, because they have dreams, because they have love,

because they have parents and kids, and the life of all of us

is worth something, and then we have to understand the

situation is not as easy as we think.