# In the Land of Brothers (2024) Review: Belonging, Deferred > In the Land of Brothers is a quiet, affecting drama about an Afghan refugee family trying to build a life in Iran over decades, restrained almost to a fault. Canonical: https://celluloidscore.com/reviews/in-the-land-of-brothers-2024-review/ Published: 2026-07-23 Last updated: 2026-09-24 Author: Kaiser Khan — Founder & Editor Language: English Review basis: direct-viewing Spoilers: none Rating: 3.5/5 ## Verdict Mostly yes. It is a humane, carefully observed refugee drama with strong performances, best for patient viewers who value restraint over plot. ## Is In the Land of Brothers worth watching? **Mostly yes. In the Land of Brothers is a thoughtful, often moving drama about Afghan refugees in Iran, told with admirable restraint and a clear moral focus.** Directors Raha Amirfazli and Alireza Ghasemi show how displacement becomes a permanent condition rather than a temporary crisis, and the performances feel lived-in. The reservation is that the same restraint can keep the audience at arm's length, and its episodic structure means some chapters land harder than others. ## What is In the Land of Brothers about? [In the Land of Brothers](https://celluloidscore.com/movies/in-the-land-of-brothers-2024/) follows members of an extended Afghan family who have fled to Iran and are trying to start their lives again. They find work, study, raise children and form relationships with the Iranian families around them, but they remain outsiders: tolerated, useful and never quite allowed to belong. The film is built as a series of chapters spread across many years, each centred on a different member of the family, so that the audience sees how the hope of a new beginning turns into a long, grinding struggle to feel at home. The cast includes Hamideh Jafari, Bashir Nikzad and Mohammad Hosseini. Raha Amirfazli and Alireza Ghasemi co-direct this French co-production, filmed in Iran in Persian, and it runs a compact 95 minutes. The pair won the directing award in the World Cinema Dramatic competition at the Sundance Film Festival in 2024. ## A refugee story told through ordinary life The film's great strength is its focus on the everyday. There are no dramatic border crossings or grand speeches. Instead, the directors show the small indignities of life without full rights: work taken on without complaint, the need to stay invisible to authorities, the constant awareness that a single mistake can have outsized consequences. By keeping the drama domestic, the film makes the political weight of refugee status tangible. Its title carries a pointed irony. Iranians and Afghans share a language and much history, and the idea of brotherhood hangs over the story, yet the relationships on screen are shaped by hierarchy and unspoken conditions. The film is more interested in systems than in villains, which makes its criticism more persuasive. ## Restraint as method Amirfazli and Ghasemi favour a patient, observational style, letting silences and glances carry emotional weight. The actors respond with understated, naturalistic performances that feel observed rather than performed, and there are moments of real heartbreak in what characters choose not to say. The chapter structure also creates a quietly devastating sense of time passing: circumstances change and years slip by, but the family's position barely moves. That approach suits the subject, but it has limits. Some viewers will find the film's emotional temperature too cool, and the leaps between chapters leave certain characters underdeveloped just as we begin to know them. The episodes are not equally strong, and the film's deliberately modest scale means it works better as a series of sharply observed moments than as a single sweeping story. ## Who should watch In the Land of Brothers? It is for viewers drawn to Iranian cinema's tradition of humane, socially conscious drama, to stories about migration and belonging, and to films that reward attention rather than demanding it. At 95 minutes, it is an easy commitment. It is suitable for older teenagers and adults, and deals frankly with discrimination, loss and the emotional toll of living without security. From our catalogue, two films about outsiders and the systems that hem them in: - [La Haine](https://celluloidscore.com/reviews/la-haine-1995-review/), a far angrier French film about young men from immigrant families shut out of the society around them. - [A Prophet](https://celluloidscore.com/reviews/a-prophet-2009-review/), Jacques Audiard's prison drama about a young outsider learning to survive inside a hostile hierarchy. ## The verdict In the Land of Brothers is a modest, carefully made drama that captures the long, quiet reality of life as a refugee with dignity and precision. Its restraint occasionally dulls its impact, but its humanity and the understated strength of its performances make it well worth seeking out. **Rating: 3.5/5** ## Related title - [In the Land of Brothers (2024)](https://celluloidscore.com/movies/in-the-land-of-brothers-2024/) ## Editorial - [Editorial standards](https://celluloidscore.com/about/editorial-policy/) - [Report a correction](https://celluloidscore.com/about/corrections/)