{ "id": "epf1zjp0vz", "slug": "at-five-in-the-afternoon", "title": "At Five in the Afternoon", "updated": "2026-11-01", "topic_path": [ { "id": "culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture" }, { "id": "culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical", "label": "Drama and biographical films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-2000s", "label": "Drama films 2000s", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-2000s" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-2000s.biographical-and-historical-drama-films", "label": "Biographical and historical drama films 2000s", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-2000s.biographical-and-historical-drama-films" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-2000s.biographical-and-historical-drama-films.yr-2000-2005", "label": "Released 2000 to 2005", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-2000s.biographical-and-historical-drama-films.yr-2000-2005" } ], "geo": [ { "id": "geo.asia.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-2000s", "label": "Asia (other) · 2001 to 2020: Drama films 2000s", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-2000s", "path": [ { "id": "geo.asia", "label": "Asia (other)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia" }, { "id": "geo.asia.t2001", "label": "Asia (other) · 2001 to 2020", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t2001" }, { "id": "geo.asia.t2001.culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t2001.culture" }, { "id": "geo.asia.t2001.culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t2001.culture.performance" }, { "id": "geo.asia.t2001.culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t2001.culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "geo.asia.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "geo.asia.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "geo.asia.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical", "label": "Drama and biographical films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical" }, { "id": "geo.asia.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-2000s", "label": "Drama films 2000s", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.asia.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-2000s" } ] } ], "excerpt": "At Five in the Afternoon (Panj-e asr) is a 2003 Iran-France drama by Samira Makhmalbaf about Noqreh, an Afghan girl secretly attending school and dreaming of becoming president; it won the Jury Prize at Cannes 2003.", "snippet": "At Five in the Afternoon (Panj-e asr) is a 2003 Iran-France drama by Samira Makhmalbaf about Noqreh, an Afghan girl secretly attending school and dreaming of becoming president; it won the Jury Prize at Cannes 2003.", "node": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.drama-biographical.drama-films-2000s.biographical-and-historical-drama-films.yr-2000-2005", "markdown": "# At Five in the Afternoon\n\n**At Five in the Afternoon** (original title *Panj-e asr*) is a 2003 drama film directed by Samira Makhmalbaf, an Iranian-French co-production set in Kabul after the fall of the [Taliban](https://www.edgepedia.org/taliban). It follows Noqreh, a young Afghan woman who secretly attends a newly reopened secular school for girls and dreams of becoming president of Afghanistan. The film won the Jury Prize and the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival.[1](https://archives.cinemas-asie.com/en/movies/item/3854-at-five-in-the-afternoon.html)\n\n| Key fact | Detail |\n|---|---|\n| Director / year | Samira Makhmalbaf, 2003; her third feature after *The Apple* (1997) and *Blackboards* (1999)[1](https://archives.cinemas-asie.com/en/movies/item/3854-at-five-in-the-afternoon.html) • [2](https://www.biff.kr/eng/html/archive/arc_history_view.asp?1=1&kind=history&m_idx=8205&page_name=showing&pyear=2003) |\n| Production | Iran-France; Makhmalbaf Film House with Wild Bunch and Bac Films; 35 mm color[1](https://archives.cinemas-asie.com/en/movies/item/3854-at-five-in-the-afternoon.html) |\n| Runtime | Listed as 105 minutes by the Makhmalbaf family site and 106 minutes by festival catalogs[3](https://makhmalbaf.com/?q=film%2FAt-five-in-the-afternoon) • [1](https://archives.cinemas-asie.com/en/movies/item/3854-at-five-in-the-afternoon.html) |\n| Language | Dari (Persian)[4](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0363303/) |\n| Title source | Borrowed from a poem by Federico García Lorca about the death of a bullfighter[5](https://www.kviff.com/en/programme/film/4/1126-at-five-in-the-afternoon) |\n| Principal awards | Jury Prize and Ecumenical Jury Prize, Cannes 2003; Golden Peacock (first prize, Best Film), 34th International Film Festival of India, 2003[1](https://archives.cinemas-asie.com/en/movies/item/3854-at-five-in-the-afternoon.html) • [3](https://makhmalbaf.com/?q=film%2FAt-five-in-the-afternoon) |\n| Lead cast | Agheleh Rezaie (Noqreh), Abdolgani Yousefrazi (Father), Razi Mohebi (Poet), Marzieh Amiri (Leylomah)[6](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/at_five_in_the_afternoon) |\n\n## Spoilers\n\n### Plot\n\nAfter the fall of the Taliban, schools in Afghanistan reopen for girls. Noqreh's conservative father believes girls should not be educated, though he concedes enough to let her attend Koran school. Each morning she pretends to honor his wishes; after he drops her off, she changes her slippers for [high-heeled shoes](https://www.edgepedia.org/high-heeled-shoe) and heads to the newly opened secular school, where girls learn self-respect along with everything else.[5](https://www.kviff.com/en/programme/film/4/1126-at-five-in-the-afternoon)\n\nIn a politics class, Noqreh voices her dream of becoming president of her country, taking the former Pakistani president [Benazir Bhutto](https://www.edgepedia.org/benazir-bhutto) as her inspiration.[5](https://www.kviff.com/en/programme/film/4/1126-at-five-in-the-afternoon) A young poet (Razi Mohebi), much taken with her, encourages the ambition, cajoles a photographer to take pictures of her for a school election campaign on credit, and introduces the poem that gives the film its title.[7](https://www.screendaily.com/at-five-in-the-afternoon-panj-e-asr/4013646.article)\n\nThe household around her carries the film's darker weight. Her sister-in-law Leylomah mothers a dying, malnourished baby and cannot produce milk because her own hunger prevents her from lactating; her husband Akhtar is missing.[8](https://cinegraph.org/movies/at-five-in-the-afternoon-2003) As the film continues, Noqreh, Leylomah and the baby, and the father are forced to become refugees, and the Lorca poem's meditation on death gathers its full relevance.[7](https://www.screendaily.com/at-five-in-the-afternoon-panj-e-asr/4013646.article)\n\n## Title\n\nThe phrase \"At five in the afternoon\" comes from a poem by the Spanish poet [Federico García Lorca](https://www.edgepedia.org/federico-garcia-lorca), a lament for his friend, the matador Ignacio Sánchez Mejías, gored to death in the bullring in 1934; its opening stanza includes the line \"The rest was death, and death alone at five in the afternoon.\"[9](https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2003/09/tff4-s24.pdf) • [10](https://archive.starandshadow.org.uk/work/review/338) The recitation of the phrase, spoken over a desolate and empty landscape, opens the film.[10](https://archive.starandshadow.org.uk/work/review/338)\n\n## Production\n\nSamira Makhmalbaf, born in 1980 in Tehran, was 23 when the film was made. She had acted at age eight in *The Cyclist*, directed by her father Mohsen Makhmalbaf, directed her first feature *[The Apple](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-apple-1998-film)* at 17 as the youngest director in the official section of the 1998 Cannes Film Festival, and won a Cannes Special Jury Award for her second feature *Blackboards* (1999).[2](https://www.biff.kr/eng/html/archive/arc_history_view.asp?1=1&kind=history&m_idx=8205&page_name=showing&pyear=2003)\n\nThe film was shot on location in Kabul in the summer and fall of 2002, with nonprofessional actors recruited from the streets of Kabul.[11](https://fest.afi.com/2003/beyond-conflict-focus-on-the-middle-east-2003/at-five-in-the-afternoon-panj-e-asr/) Makhmalbaf had difficulty casting the lead role because many women refused to appear on camera without their burqa; Agheleh Rezaie was her second choice, after the first woman she cast dropped out on learning she would have to show her face to the camera.[4](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0363303/) The screenplay is credited to Samira Makhmalbaf and Mohsen Makhmalbaf, with Mohsen Makhmalbaf also editing and Maysam Makhmalbaf producing; Ebrahim Ghafori was the cinematographer and Mohammad Reza Darvishi composed the music.[1](https://archives.cinemas-asie.com/en/movies/item/3854-at-five-in-the-afternoon.html) • [2](https://www.biff.kr/eng/html/archive/arc_history_view.asp?1=1&kind=history&m_idx=8205&page_name=showing&pyear=2003)\n\nThe Guardian described it as the first film set in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban, its ruined Kabul setting giving it an unsettling quality of its own.[12](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2004/sep/17/dvdreviews1) A University of Calicut course text calls it the first film shot in Kabul after the NATO invasion.[13](https://sde.uoc.ac.in/sites/default/files/sde_videos/SLM-Eng-Voices%20of%20Women.pdf) While Ghafori was working on the film in Afghanistan, the Afghan director Sedigh Barmak approached him to shoot *Osama*, the first Afghan feature film made in the country since the war.[14](https://openjournals.uwaterloo.ca/index.php/kinema/article/download/1198/1485/2772)\n\n## Reception and awards\n\nAt Cannes 2003 the film received the Jury Prize in the official competition and the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury (listed on the Makhmalbaf family site as the \"Grand prize from Society of churches of world\").[1](https://archives.cinemas-asie.com/en/movies/item/3854-at-five-in-the-afternoon.html) It also won the Golden Peacock, first prize for Best Film, at the 34th [International Film Festival of India](https://www.edgepedia.org/international-film-festival-of-india) in 2003, and the \"Youths' Cinema\" Award at Singapore's 17th International Silver Screen Film Festival in 2004.[3](https://makhmalbaf.com/?q=film%2FAt-five-in-the-afternoon)\n\nCritics responded to its mixture of realism and poetry. Screen Daily noted that the film's documentary service alone, recording the ruins of Kabul and a brutally unproductive landscape under anonymous Western military aircraft, would make it important, while praising its expressive images and sound.[7](https://www.screendaily.com/at-five-in-the-afternoon-panj-e-asr/4013646.article) Time Out called it bold and visually striking but uneven, a series of tableaux rather than a fully worked-through story.[15](https://www.timeout.com/movies/at-five-in-the-afternoon) RTÉ's review praised its non-professional cast and gritty locations, which give it the feel of a documentary, while finding that the storyline wanders and peters out with a downbeat ending.[16](https://www.rte.ie/entertainment/movie-reviews/2004/0415/446585-atfiveintheafternoon/) According to Makhmalbaf, quoted in that review, fewer than 40 films were made in Afghanistan during the first 100 years of cinema.[16](https://www.rte.ie/entertainment/movie-reviews/2004/0415/446585-atfiveintheafternoon/)\n\nOn IMDb the film holds a rating of 6.8/10 from about 1,700 users, with a recorded worldwide gross of $515,144.[4](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0363303/)\n\n## Context\n\nThe film addresses the position of women in post-Taliban Afghanistan. The Vesoul festival catalog describes its three central figures as an old man symbolizing fundamentalist Islam, his daughter-in-law, the mother of a dying baby, and his daughter Noghreh, a student yearning for emancipation to the extent of dreaming of becoming President of the Republic.[1](https://archives.cinemas-asie.com/en/movies/item/3854-at-five-in-the-afternoon.html) Makhmalbaf herself framed the film broadly: \"Cinema ignores boundaries… This film is not only about Afghanistan… Taliban are not only those who ruled Afghanistan for years. Taliban are the expression of our own backwardness.\"[1](https://archives.cinemas-asie.com/en/movies/item/3854-at-five-in-the-afternoon.html) Later scholarship reads the film through Noqreh's movement through doorways in occupied Kabul as an engagement with the gendered oppressions suffered by Afghan women under both Taliban rule and the Western occupation that followed.[17](https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/53832/1/Ravenscroft%2C%20Margaret_Building%20Space%2C%20Building%20Selves_2025.pdf)\n\n## References\n\n1. [At Five in the Afternoon (Panj-e asr), Festival des Cinémas d'Asie de Vesoul](https://archives.cinemas-asie.com/en/movies/item/3854-at-five-in-the-afternoon.html)\n2. [At Five In The Afternoon, Busan International Film Festival archive](https://www.biff.kr/eng/html/archive/arc_history_view.asp?1=1&kind=history&m_idx=8205&page_name=showing&pyear=2003)\n3. [At five in the Afternoon, Makhmalbaf Film House official website](https://makhmalbaf.com/?q=film%2FAt-five-in-the-afternoon)\n4. [At Five in the Afternoon (2003), IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0363303/)\n5. [At Five in the Afternoon, Karlovy Vary International Film Festival](https://www.kviff.com/en/programme/film/4/1126-at-five-in-the-afternoon)\n6. [At Five in the Afternoon, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/at_five_in_the_afternoon)\n7. [At Five In The Afternoon (Panj E Asr) review, Screen Daily](https://www.screendaily.com/at-five-in-the-afternoon-panj-e-asr/4013646.article)\n8. [At Five in the Afternoon, Cinegraph](https://cinegraph.org/movies/at-five-in-the-afternoon-2003)\n9. [How does the artist portray historical tragedy?, WSWS](https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2003/09/tff4-s24.pdf)\n10. [At five in the afternoon review, Star and Shadow Cinema](https://archive.starandshadow.org.uk/work/review/338)\n11. [At Five in the Afternoon (Panj e Asr), AFI FEST 2003](https://fest.afi.com/2003/beyond-conflict-focus-on-the-middle-east-2003/at-five-in-the-afternoon-panj-e-asr/)\n12. [At Five in the Afternoon, DVD review, The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2004/sep/17/dvdreviews1)\n13. [Voices of Women, School of Distance Education, University of Calicut](https://sde.uoc.ac.in/sites/default/files/sde_videos/SLM-Eng-Voices%20of%20Women.pdf)\n14. [Cinema in Post-Taliban Afghanistan, KINEMA (Ron Holloway, 2009)](https://openjournals.uwaterloo.ca/index.php/kinema/article/download/1198/1485/2772)\n15. [At Five in the Afternoon review, Time Out](https://www.timeout.com/movies/at-five-in-the-afternoon)\n16. [At Five in the Afternoon review, RTÉ](https://www.rte.ie/entertainment/movie-reviews/2004/0415/446585-atfiveintheafternoon/)\n17. [Building Space, Building Selves (Margaret Ravenscroft, 2023), NTU repository](https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/53832/1/Ravenscroft%2C%20Margaret_Building%20Space%2C%20Building%20Selves_2025.pdf)\n\n---\n*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 2000s › Biographical and historical drama films 2000s › Released 2000 to 2005*\n\n*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*\n\n*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*\n\nLicense: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license\n", "same_as": [], "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/at-five-in-the-afternoon", "markdown_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/at-five-in-the-afternoon.md", "license": { "name": "Edgepedia Community License 1.0", "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license", "summary": "Free with credit, commercial use included. AI training is open to everyone. For other uses, organizations over USD 100M in revenue or 100M monthly users license separately.", "spdx": "LicenseRef-Edgepedia-Community-1.0" }, "credit": "\"At Five in the Afternoon\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/at-five-in-the-afternoon. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "credit_md": "\"[At Five in the Afternoon](https://www.edgepedia.org/at-five-in-the-afternoon)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), [https://www.edgepedia.org/at-five-in-the-afternoon](https://www.edgepedia.org/at-five-in-the-afternoon). [Edgepedia Community License 1.0](https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license).", "credit_html": "\"At Five in the Afternoon\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/at-five-in-the-afternoon. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "speakable": "At Five in the Afternoon is a 2003 Iran-France drama by Samira Makhmalbaf about Noqreh, an Afghan girl secretly attending school and dreaming of becoming president; it won the Jury Prize at Cannes 2003." }