At Five in the Afternoon

Samira Makhmalbaf was 22 when she directed At Five in the Afternoon, which premiered at Cannes and won the Jury Prize. She shot it in the ruins of post-Taliban Kabul with non-professional actors, including Agheleh Rezaie, a real Afghan refugee who plays Noqreh — a young woman who secretly dreams of becoming president.

The film's title is taken from Lorca's poem "Lament for Ignacio Sánchez Mejías" ("A las cinco de la tarde"), and the film carries that poem's sense of inevitable tragedy. Noqreh attends a secular school, removes her burqa when her father isn't looking, practices giving presidential speeches to her reflection. But Afghanistan is still a country where women are property.

Makhmalbaf's camera captures the surreal beauty of a devastated city: a bombed-out palace where refugees have pitched tents, a helicopter rusting in a field where children play. When Noqreh finally dares to speak her dream aloud — "I want to be president" — the silence that follows is the film's real subject.