The President is the story of a dictator of an imaginary country in the Caucasus, who is forced to escape following a coup d’état, and begins a journey to discover his country in the company of his five-year-old grandson. The two travel across the lands that the President once governed. Now, disguised as a street musician to avoid being recognized, the former dictator comes into contact with his people, which he comes to know from a different point of view.
Itinerant Kurdish teachers, carrying blackboards on their backs, look for students in the hills and villages of Iran, near the Iraqi border during the Iran-Iraq war. Said falls in with a group of old men looking for their bombed-out village; he offers to guide them, and takes as his wife Halaleh, the clan's lone woman, a widow with a young son. Reeboir attaches himself to a dozen pre-teen boys weighed down by contraband they carry across the border; they're mules, always on the move. Said and Reeboir try to teach as their potential students keep walking. Danger is close; armed soldiers patrol the skies, the roads, and the border. Is there a role for a teacher? Is there hope?
Filmmakers from all over the world provide short films – each of which is eleven minutes, nine seconds, and one frame of film in length – that offer differing perspectives on the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
A young girl zealously wants to go to school and learn to read and write. Almost everywhere she is met with hostility or indifference. The only young boy who takes her to his school is thrown out by the teacher, because helping her prevented him from arriving in time. On her way home she and other girls are taken as prisoners by boys playing as Taliban fighters. They tear her school book to pieces and threaten to stone their female captives.
Khorshid, a blind child growing up in Tajikistan, is constantly distracted by music and sounds. This frequently causes him to be late to his job as an instrument tuner even though he runs the risk of being fired at a time when his family is in danger of being evicted from their house.
After an Afghanistan-born woman who lives in Canada receives a letter from her suicidal sister, she takes a perilous journey through Afghanistan to try to find her.
After twelve years of imprisonment by their own parents, two Iranian sisters are finally released by social workers to face the outside world for the first time.
A girl reaches the age of nine and is supposed to act as a grown woman according to her family. A girl participates in a bike race against the will of her husband. An elderly woman decides she wants to buy all the things she always wanted but could never get.
Documentary showing the life of children of the Afghan villages bordering Iran, and how their life and culture were affected by Taliban regime.
Nogreh is a young Afghani woman living with her father and her sister-in-law, Leylomah, whose husband, Akhtar, is missing. Beyond the issue of Akhtar, Leylomah is most concerned with how to feed her baby. She cannot provide milk for her baby as her own hunger is preventing her from lactating. Nogreh, however, aspires toward a life in a western styled democracy. Although the Taliban are no longer in power in Afghanistan, traditional forces are still active in the country. Nogreh often displays signs of rebellion, such as wearing a pair of white pumps instead of the traditional slipper beneath her burqa. But mostly, Nogreh wants to be educated. Without her father's knowledge, Nogreh is attending a secular girls school. Ultimately, she wants to become President of Afghanistan. With the help of a Pakistani refugee who likes her as a woman, Nogreh tries to understand exactly what forces led to current world leaders being elected, those forces which she wants to emulate.
A wealthy boy hires a poor child to carry him around like a horse.
Documentary showing the backstage of production of Samira Makhmalbaf's film Panj É Asr(At Five in the Afternoon), in Kabul, after the fall of the Taliban regime. Everything was recorded with a small digital camera by Samira's 14-year-old sister Hana.
In post-Taliban Kabul, two lost children, brother and sister whose parents are in prison, try to survive every day by scavenging for food. At night, they join their imprisoned mother.
An Iranian filmmaker and his son travel to Haifa, Israel to investigate a religion that originated a hundred and seventy years ago. Youth from all over come to Haifa to join this religion, and those who serve in the gardens that surround the holy places develop peace-loving attitudes through their interactions with nature. The filmmaker shares with his son the idea that if the Iranian people had adopted a peaceful religion, Iran would not be preparing a nuclear attack on Israel, but the son believes that all religions tend to bring about destruction. As a result of these arguments, father and son separate from one another and pursue their own paths.
Afghanistan fell into the hands of the Taliban due to the withdrawal of US troops in August 2021. Upon hearing this news in a foreign country, the Makhmalbaf family rolled up their sleeves and set out to rescue Afghan artists in crisis.
A girl believing in God marries an atheist, who is consumed by doubt. They decide to spend their honeymoon in India...
When Hana’s aunt goes to the hospital to have a nose job, grandpa comes to take care of the kids. The kids go play in the alley, but to be on the safe side, grandpa suggest they’d come back home. They accept to return home on the one condition that they would be allowed to use the video camera to make a movie…
22-year-old Claudia is a single mother who lives with Marghe, her sixyear-old precocious daughter. When Claudia is kicked out of her house for failing to pay the rent, she leaves Marghe to an old woman next door.
A film about an anthropologist and his daughter during three periods: before, during, and after the Iranian Revolution. The daughter works in the accident & emergency department of a hospital, which is never empty of suicidal patients. The reason behind each suicide attempt is different, especially before and after the revolution. Looking for a reason to live, one of the suicide patients falls in love with the anthropologist’s daughter.
In the midst of a mid-life crisis Jan, a 40 year old dancing teacher, decides to instigate a revolution against himself. His first act is to summon each of his four lovers, who are unaware of each other, to join him at the dance studio where we assume he is a tutor. His revelations to the women prompt a discourse about love and the fleeting nature of happiness. But when he comes to the fourth and final woman, he finds that his own philosophy of love is not as easy to apply as he had presumed. He realizes that the more the contemporary world has become sexually oriented the farther it has moved away from love...
