Samira Makhmalbaf walked alone up the red carpet to the Lumière Theater for the soirée dedicated to the screening of her new film in competition: Five in the Afternoon. Simply dressed in a long black dress and adorned with black headscarf, she strolled up to the sea of photographers for the official photo shoot. The next day, she sat at her press conference, fielding questions about her new film.

A daring, courageous, outspoken and talented young woman, Makhmalbaf is a previous member of the jury of Cannes, with two features to her credit. Blackboards won the Cannes jury prize in 2000 from 'Un Certain Regard' and Apple was awarded distinctions such as jury prizes at Sao Paulo and Thessaloniki in 1998.

Samira's interest in Afghanistan goes back to her father's film Cyclist (1989), made when she was eight, about an Afghani immigrant whose wife tries to raise funds to cure her husband's illness by cycling. Samira acted in the film made at the Pakistani border of Afghanistan. Her knowledge of the area inspired her sympathy, and during the shooting of Kandahar, she started to take pictures at the border. Then came her contribution from Iran "God, Construction, and Destruction" for the assemblage film 11'09''01 - September 11.

The Iranian's latest film set in Afghanistan concerns a young woman who wants to become the 'President of the Republic', the first film to be made by a foreign director in Kabul since the end of Taliban rule. Blackboards was made in Iran at the Afghanistan border. The next year father Mohsen made Kandahar, a film that brought the plight of Afghani women to international attention. A writer and filmmaker from post-revolutionary Iran, Mohsen Makhmalbaf started Makhmalbaf Film House in 1996 and took a break in filmmaking, teaching film to selected students, including his three children: Samira, Maysam and Hana.

As Samira explained at the press conference, "there is a difference in my film and my father's movie Kandahar". Before September 11, people asked him 'why did you choose such a forgotten country?' His film "provided information and corrected wrong information", said Samira. She emphasized that "satellite pictures", including media images of the USA rescue operation, "do not provide the true picture of the hidden war in Afghanistan".

"I want to show the backwardness about Afghanistan and the past and present generation with shots of men and women, that is the difference. I try to represent people not politicians. I think when the girl in my film wants to be president, I wrote a character about a boy who likes poetry. I don't like politics so he reads a poem to her. I couldn't tolerate that girl liking politics so the boy likes poems and teaches her that".

Agheleh Rezaie, the same age as Samira, plays the character of Noqreh in Five in the Afternoon. It was hard to find a woman to be in her film, and at the time of shooting there was no one. "Everyone said no and didn't want to be filmed", explains Samira. In the autumn and summer of 2002 when women were liberated and could go to school and work they were still afraid of Taliban in their culture", she said. "They did not know what kind of movie it was, and they asked me if I they should dance because they assimilate the movies of India".

Samira believes that the documentary her 14-year-old sister Hana made (nearly kidnapped on a trip to Afghanistan) is better than Five in the Afternoon. Joy of Madness (2002) is based on four characters: a mad family, a Mullah and two women. Compared to Kandahar she believes her sister's film better shows the character of Afghani people.

'Makhmalbaf House' produces exceptional films, simple illustrations about people that command powerful attention. Samira refuses to be a silent observer as an Iranian situated between the tragedies of Afghanistan and Iraq and demands to know her country's neighbors. She has traveled in the area, spent time on its border taking photographs since she was a child and has much to say about the plight of women and a war torn country, mediated by images that conveys little of its people. She is convinced that her work should be showing the plight and suffering of these people through cinema.

Moira Sullivan