Scarlet Poppy

Nic, a private U.S. contractor, has spent years working in Afghanistan and has become increasingly jaded by the violence, hypocrisy and futility he has witnessed. Divorced, alone, and with little more than a tenuous long-distance correspondence with his daughter, Nic is a man without a home, doing work that has lost all meaning for him. Shakeila, an Afghan widow, mother of two, and a doctor, lives in the conservative Pashtun heartland and runs a clinic. She finds herself caught up in a Taliban-controlled culture so repressive that it is increasingly making her life and aspirations impossible. One day, Nic and Shakeila accidentally gaze into each other's the eyes at a check point. Shakeila is quickly covered with a burkha and Nic is left with the image of the only part of her body he can see - her scarlet painted toes. Later they meet again and what passes unspoken between Nic and Shakeila cannot be denied by either. A latent jealousy from a local drug lord leads to a love triangle and an almost inevitable conclusion.