In the Land of Brothers (France/Iran/Netherlands, 2024)

Iran, 2022

The haunting story of a rural school teacher who becomes a surrogate mother to raise funds for her gender transition surgery only to learn the prospective mother can’t pay.

DCP, color, in Persian with English subtitles, 11 min. Director: Ehsan Abbassei. With: Shakiba Asgari, Sepideh Jafari, Reyhaneh Razi.

France/Iran/Netherlands, 2024

Directors Alireza Ghasemi and Raha Amirfazli tell a powerful story across three interconnected episodes of an Afghan refugee family’s generational struggle to make a home in Iran. Corrupt authorities, dehumanizing immigration laws and simply ironic twists of fate each take their toll. Nuanced and affecting performances from the largely non-professional cast and a piercing sense of trauma and injustice that never slips into the melodramatic contributed to Amirfazli and Ghasemi’s win for Best Directing in the World Cinema category at Sundance this year where their feature film debut made its world premiere.

DCP, color, in Persian with English subtitles, 95 min. Directors: Alireza Ghasemi, Raha Amirfazli. Screenwriters: Alireza Ghasemi, Raha Amirfazli. With: Hamideh Jafari, Bashir Nikzad, Mohammad Hosseini.

Host or Publisher UCLA Film & Television Archive