Malia Obama Makes Rare Red Carpet Appearance For Her Short Film ‘The Heart’

Malia Obama , the eldest daughter of Barack and Michelle Obama, made a rare red carpet appearance on Sept. 6. The 26-year-old attended the 50th edition of the prestigious Deauville American Film Festival, where she made her directorial debut with her short film The Heart .

“I’m so excited. I mean, I’ve never done anything like this … so of course [I’m] a little bit terrified, but mostly just excited,” she told the French news outlet Paris Match in a red-carpet interview.

Malia also received the Young Spirit Award, which celebrates “the new fig­ures of tomor­row’s cin­e­ma” and “emerging talent,” according to the film festival’s website .

According to People , the short film was presented at the Sundance Film Festival in January .

“The film is about lost objects and lonely people and forgiveness and regret, but I also think it works hard to uncover where tenderness and closeness can exist in these things,” Malia said in a recent interview with Sundance Institute. “We hope you that enjoy the film and that it makes you feel a bit less lonely, or at least reminds you not to forget about the people who are.”

The film synopsis reads: “ A lone­ly man grieves the death of his moth­er after an argu­ment about gro­ceries and an odd request in her will.”

As a filmmaker, Malia goes by Malia Ann — Ann being her middle name — instead of Malia Obama. The Heart isn’t her first foray into the film industry. She previously worked as a writer on Swarm , created by Donald Glover and starring Dominique Fishback. She also interned on HBO’s set of Girls during the summer of 2015.

“She was interning at HBO, and they thought, ‘What if she comes a couple days a week to the set of Girls?’” Lena Dunham said during an appearance on The Howard Stern Show, according to Teen Vogue . “She loved the show…she wanted to do all the jobs. That was the cool thing. She was totally enthusiastic.”