In the Land of Brothers

Leila picks tomatoes in a field heavy with ripening vines. We, the spectators, linger a few steps away. She looks at us – or rather, through us. Across from her, Mohammed also picks tomatoes. He, too, seems to meet our gaze, but no, his eyes lock on Leila’s. And we, caught in the middle, become silent witnesses to a secret exchange. This act of interception in the film’s opening scene, where intimate moments are quietly exposed to us, the unwitting spectators, lies at the heart of In the Land of Brothers. Its brilliance lies in its ambiguity: a glance, a hesitation, a fleeting emotion. Silent interactions accumulate weight, their meaning shifting with time, circumstance, and history.

The film unfolds in three chapters, each set against a distinct landscape: the foothills of the Aladagh mountains in Bojnord, the shores of Bandar Anzali, and the capital, Tehran. Spanning two decades of Afghan refugee life in Iran, each chapter is anchored in a pivotal historical moment – from the 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan to the Taliban’s return to power in 2021. Through the stories of Mohammed, Leila, and Qasem, the film unravels the layered realities of refugee life.

In the first chapter, Mohammed, a 15-year-old boy, attends a vocational school to learn ironworking. He is bright and kind, crafting origami roses for his two friends, who admire both his intelligence and his good looks. This detail is significant, because it foreshadows what is to come... One day, after school, Mohammed is picked up by the police. In that moment, the film’s central conflict reveals itself: his qualities, his kindness, his aspirations, none of it matters in the face of his identity. He is not just Afghan; he is Hazara, a double mark of difference that compounds the discrimination against him. This revelation unfolds alongside another – Mohammed’s two friends are also Afghan, yet their features allow them to pass as Iranian, shielding them from the same scrutiny. Thus we come to understand the mechanisms of discrimination: what you learn, when you learn it, and how each detail reshapes your understanding.

The second chapter, set ten years later, follows Leila who is now married and working as a maid for an Iranian couple in their seaside home. Here, every word, every glance, every shift in posture carries unspoken weight. The exchanges between Leila and her employers, Behnam and Negin, are steeped in ambiguity – are they laced with hostility, indifference, or a quiet understanding? The film resists over-explanation, instead allowing tensions to build in the subtext. In these moments of both struggle and fleeting solidarity, it gestures toward an uneasy coexistence, a fragile form of integration, one that is never fully embraced but is, perhaps, momentarily felt.

As we witness these dynamic unfold, In the Land of Brothers introduces a recurring theme that binds these experiences together: the significance of documentation – or the lack thereof. Legal status dictates survival. Mohammed is documented. Leila is undocumented. In the third chapter, Qasem’s case highlights a cruel loophole: one can obtain nationality by serving the state, but at what cost? This theme loops back to the film’s title, In the Land of Brothers, now used ironically. First invoked during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, the phrase symbolised Iran’s initial welcome to Afghan refugees, grounded in shared cultural and religious ties. However, after four decades of war and exile, with three million Afghan refugees in Iran, that sense of brotherhood has long since eroded. Here, the dissonance is underscored, as co-director Alireza Ghasemi explained at the film’s screening at the FIFDH: «We are now seeing second and third generations of Afghans living in Iran without nationality, still considered refugees. We played in the streets together; we went to school together. They are Iranian. But the government doesn’t see them as such.»

In a near-documentary approach, Iranian directors Raha Amirfazl and Alireza Ghasemi collaborated with members of the Hazara community, inviting them to shape the script based on their own lived experiences. The actors were not merely reciting lines but adapting them to reflect their realities. This method of storytelling deepens the film’s emotional resonance, making it a testament to lived struggles. For the directors, this project was not just an artistic endeavour but a necessity, a means of capturing a reality that remains unchanged since decades. Their story transcends national borders, reflecting the universal plight of the undocumented and displaced.

Both directors left Iran after post-production, knowing that staying would mean facing the unknown consequences of their work. Ghasemi describes it as a story within a story, for now they too share some of the same struggles with documentation and visible discrimination in the West as the Afghans in Iran. However, for all its thematic weight, the film offers a kind of solace: it gives voice and space to those who have none. In stolen glances and prolonged stares, in the words left unsaid, in whispered confessions and quiet tears, there is release. An expression of suffering that has long been silenced.