Anxious to learn more about a culture and country whose history and poetry she'd studied as a girl in Iran, Yassamin Maleknasr set out to visit Afghanistan only a few months after the fall of Taliban. Travel was difficult in this war-ravaged land where roads don't exist, but she managed to journey all around the country, interviewing a wide range of Afghans, from lovestruck young men to the nation's first female minister. The resulting film simply and movingly conveys a sense of people who, despite all the suffering they've undergone, have not forsaken their collective dream for their nation's future. The director's decision to avoid the by now clichéd images of men with Kalashnikovs and women in burqas is an effective means of putting the viewer in touch with Afghanistan's authentic ancient culture -- and the human face of its people.