‘In The Land Of Brothers’: Sundance Review

Dirs: Alireza Ghasemi, Raha Amirfazli. Iran/France/Netherlands. 2024

Members of an extended Afghan family struggle to find a sense of home as refugees in Iran — despite the fact that the country is known as ‘the land of our brothers’ to the five million Afghans who have been displaced by conflict over the last 40 years. For their debut feature, Iranian writer/directors Alireza Ghasemi and Raha Amirfazli were inspired by the experiences of their Afghan friends, and their uncompromising drama blends the personal and the political to largely impressive effect.

Blends the personal and the political to largely impressive effect

While refugee films are not unusual, it is rare to see the migrant experience from this perspective, filmed within Iran. (Ghasemi and Amirfazli made the decision to relocate post-shoot, so they would be free to release their frank drama away from Iranian oversight.) That is likely enough to tempt other events or a specialist distributor following In The Land Of Brothers’ Sundance premiere, helped by the fact that it is a fearless telling of a relevant story — Afghans remain one of the largest refugee populations worldwide.

The screenplay is divided into three chapters and set across 20 years. In 2001, in the Iranian city of Bojnold, the attempts of young refugee teenager Mohammad (newcomer Mohammad Hosseini) to live an ordinary life and do well at school are put into jeopardy by the attentions of a local police officer. Hosseini’s performance is perhaps the best of the bunch, as a vulnerable youngster who — like adolescents the world over — is desperate to fit in, but finds himself constantly singled out for his heritage. 

Central to Mohammad’s story is the fact that he feels he had to keep his unfair treatment hidden; the impact is seen in his increasing withdrawal from his parents and his concerned friend Leila (Hamideh Jafari).

Ten years later, in 2011, Leila — now working as a housekeeper for a wealthy Iranian family in the northern coastal city of Bandar Anzali — also finds herself having to keep a devastating secret, as she fears the truth would result in deportation for herself and her young son.

The third and final segment is set in Tehran in 2021, where Leila’s brother Qasem (Iranian actor Bashir Nikzad) takes centre stage. He has managed to make a life of sorts with his deaf wife and their two children, but news about his son – who they believed was working in Turkey but was actually fighting in Syria – shatters Qasem’s already fragile security. Secrets loom large here, too, as he struggle to tell his wife the truth that the promise of much-longed for Iranian citizenship is nowhere near worth the price it has cost.

With the migrants’ inability to voice to their feelings of isolation reflected in the subtle screenplay, Ghasemi and Amirfazli make their points through creative choices. French composer Frédéric Alvarez’s melancholic score combines classical instruments like violin, clarinet and cello in unfamiliar, almost disconcerting ways; a subdued colour palette speaks of lives lived under restraint. Farshad Mohammadi’s cinematography underpins feelings of alienation and otherness, most strikingly in the middle segment where careful framing keeps Leila apart from the family she serves; forever an interloper, despite their warmth and friendly concern.

This is a trilogy of hardship and subjugation, with the filmmakers documenting a system in Iran which denies refugees any real opportunities and keeps them firmly as second class citizens. Joining the growing number of works determined to put a human face on the global migrant crisis, In The Land Of Brothers also carries with it hope for increased awareness.