Basma Al-Nassri at the Dubai Film Festival. Pic/Meenakshi Shedde

When I saw the stunning young Basma Al-Nassri, she seemed to be hurtling along at 180kmph. Dressed modestly with a black abaya (cloak) over her jeans, and a black hijab (head scarf) covering her hair, and post-office red lipstick, she was rushing around with a video camera mounted on a tripod. She was my Kodak moment for Dubai. We were at the Madinat Jumeirah hotel, where the Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF) was holding its press conferences with film stars and directors, and there was a big flutter as Ranveer Singh and Vaani Kapoor arrived, before the world premiere of Befikre here. All the media stereotypes about Muslim women in the Middle East joyously crumbled like a Glucose biscuit dunked in cutting chai. A qualified electrical engineer working with a petrochem company in Oman, she’s such a film enthusiast, she took leave and travelled to DIFF to be a media photographer.