Iranian film-maker. Samira's reputation is prodigious - her film, At Five In The Afternoon that opened in London, in 2004, had already won prizes at Cannes and the International Film Festival of India - a cinematic genius. At Five In The Afternoon is the story of a young woman in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban and the reopening of schools for girls: she throws back the burka from her face (when no one is looking), puts on the important shoes and goes into the classroom with the express purpose of learning how to be the president of Afghanistan. The shoes are just a first step to freedom. Samira already produced films such as Blackboards (2000), which was set in Kurdistan, another lost and wandering population desperate to find what has been left of their homeland. The daughter of Iranian film-maker Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Samira borrowed a camera from her father to make her debut film, Apple, when she was just 18. It won a prize at the London Film Festival.