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Cinema is my religion. It is a way to make people sensitive, through emotions. To make them feel, experience empathy. People are touched and act ethically when they are emotionally touched.

Honestly, I think a good film is spiritual, regardless of whether its subject is faith.

The cinema has done more for my spiritual life than the church. My ideas of fame, success and beauty all originate from the big screen. Whereas Christian religion is retreating everywhere and losing more and more influence; film has filled the vacuum and supports us with myths and action-controlling images.

Then if your movie clicks with real audiences, you'll be sucked into some sort of Hollywood orbit. It's a devil of a place where the only religion that really counts is box office.

My films are very rooted in specific people's point of view. Some film-makers give a more global point of view, like God looking down at the characters.

All I wanted with that film was to represent the possibility that there might be normal people who are Muslim or Arab with the same fears, responsibilities, hopes.

Movies are my religion and God is my patron. I'm lucky enough to be in the position where I don't make movies to pay for my pool. When I make a movie, I want it to be everything to me; like I would die for it.

There are millions of Americans who belong by nature in movie theaters as they belong at political rallies or in fortuneteller parlors and on the shoot-the-chutes. To these millions, the movies are a sort of boon - a gaudier version of religion.

I could almost say it is my religion. I guess that sounds pretentious, but I want to live and breathe cinema.