"Director: Samira Makhmalbaf"

• The Apple | DVD | (07/06/2010) from £7.99   |  Saving you £8.00 (100.13%)   |  RRP £15.99

  The Apple

• Blackboards | DVD | (30/07/2001) from £12.93   |  Saving you £7.06 (35.30%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Blackboards is an unusual film. First, it's from Iran; second it's directed by a woman, Samira Makhmalbaf; third, she's only 22. Set near the border with Iraq, the film follows a group of itinerant teachers who wander the countryside looking for students, carrying their blackboards with them. At various points a blackboard comes in useful as cover from gunfire, as a stretcher, and, chopped up, as a splint. Though the film is full of social observation, it functions mainly as allegory. Despite the eagerness of the wandering teachers to impart knowledge, their efforts are largely in vain, and though the film has moments of humour its tone is ultimately rather pessimistic. The director is the daughter of Mohsen Makhmalbaf, himself a noted Iranian director who wrote Samira's earlier film The Apple, a deceptively simple story of two girls who are kept for years in seclusion before social workers order their release. Blackboards is a more elusive film and won't be everyone's cup of tea, but it's thought provoking, often moving and full of insights into an unfamiliar world. --Edward Buscombe

• 11/09/01 - September 11 | DVD | (28/04/2003) from £10.10   |  Saving you £9.89 (97.92%)   |  RRP £19.99

  This film is a unique and extraordinary response to the catastrophic events in New York City that shook the world on September 11 2001. producer Alain Brigand invited 11 renowned international directors to look towards their own cultures their own memories their own stories and their own language and create a film lasting eleven minutes nine seconds and one frame - 11'09''O1 - around September 11 and its consequences. The thought-provoking results - made with complete freedom of

• At Five In The Afternoon | DVD | (23/08/2004) from £26.98   |  Saving you £-6.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Following the fall of the Taliban Nogreh a young woman decides to resume her education so as to be to fulfil her ambitions to enter politics. Her fundamentalist father however feels that his world has collapsed. With refugees flooding to the city Nogreh and her father are forced to move from place to place for shelter as their living conditions become overcrowded.

• The Apple | DVD | (23/08/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  In Tehran twin sisters live as virtual prisoners of their poor father and blind mother locked behind bars for all of their twelve years. Their father argues that his daughters `are like flowers. They mustn't be exposed to the sun or they will soon fade'... A social worker attempts to persuade him to give them the freedom to explore the world beyond the gates of their home. 'The Apple' is the haunting first feature by Samira Makhmalbaf the daughter of the Iranian filmmaker Mohsen