Iranian filmmaker Majid Majidi, the director of “Muhammad: The Messenger of God,” has condemned the Paris terror attacks at the film’s European premiere at Camerimage in Poland. The movie, which portrays the early years of the founder of Islam, is Iran’s entry in the Oscar foreign-language film contest.

Speaking on stage at the Opera House in Bydgoszcz Wednesday evening, Majidi said: “Unfortunately these days there are certain groups that claim to be Muslims, but have nothing to do with Islam. The groups who carried out the terrorist attacks in Paris and other places claim to be the representatives and torch-bearers for that religion, but in fact they have nothing to do with Islam.”

He added: “Those groups, like the so-called Islamic State, destroy the good image of real Islamic nations. Islam, in fact, is a religion of love, tolerance and openness toward other religions and other believers.”

Majidi explained that his epic film had taken seven years to prepare for production, and three years to shoot. It is the first part of a trilogy, with the subsequent parts depicting Muhammad’s adult years and old age. He said he was already preparing the next part of the trilogy.

He said: “The purpose of our movie was to show how Islam was born, what its purpose was, and what its beliefs are, so you could have a glimpse inside the religion. The film you are about to see depicts the childhood, the formative early years, of the Prophet Muhammad, but we conceived it as the first chapter of a trilogy, and in the consecutive parts we’ll show his adulthood and his old age. We are already in pre-production for the next chapters.”