Filmmaker Payal Sethi, best known for her upcoming project "Kurinji," is turning her creative lens toward the complexities of modern European migration with her new feature film project, "Babak." The drama centers on an Afghan asylum seeker in Germany who is displaced from his temporary housing to accommodate newly arrived Ukrainian refugees. The project is currently being presented to international industry professionals at the prestigious Asian Project Market, which operates as a key component of the Busan International Film Festival’s Asian Contents and Film Market (ACFM).
The narrative of "Babak" explores a deeply human and timely dilemma within the European refugee landscape. In the film, the titular character, Babak, is forced out of his quarters to make room for new arrivals, among them a woman named Alena and her eight-year-old son, Viktor. The young boy is still anxiously waiting for news from the frontlines about his father. As Babak relentlessly fights through bureaucratic channels to bring his own family over safely, he and young Viktor develop a poignant bond. Viktor’s profound longing for a father figure inadvertently stirs emotional resonances and paternal feelings that Babak has long suppressed while navigating his precarious existence.
As tightening red tape threatens to leave him stranded and edges him closer toward illegal options, Babak must confront a profound moral question: how far is he truly willing to go for the people he loves?
Sethi reveals that the inspiration for the story struck her after she read journalistic reports detailing how Afghan refugees were being systematically relocated from temporary shelters across Germany to clear space for the sudden, massive influx of Ukrainians fleeing the war in their homeland. What particularly captured the director’s attention was the stark social and political reality of seeing two distinct groups of people, both intensely uprooted from their homes, suddenly being categorized and ranked against one another by institutional need and geopolitical expediency.
The creative roots of the story, however, run much deeper, drawing from both literary history and personal family legacy. Sethi notes that the film’s conceptual origins trace back to Rabindranath Tagore’s classic short story "Kabuliwala," a piece of literature she first encountered and read as a child. Furthermore, the characterization of her protagonist is heavily inspired by her own grandfather. During the tumultuous partition of India and Pakistan, her grandfather moved from Lahore to Calcutta, which is now known as Kolkata, and was forced to build his life entirely from scratch in a new city.
Describing her grandfather, Sethi shares that he was a stoic and intimidating figure to many, yet possessed an unexpected, deep tenderness when interacting with his grandchildren. She notes that this specific duality forms the very emotional essence of her protagonist, Babak.
Articulately outlining her overarching vision for the film, Sethi emphasizes her desire to move past clinical and distant dialogues surrounding mass movement. She wants the project to transcend the abstract frameworks through which society so frequently discusses migration, such as statistical tallies, rigid bureaucratic policies, national identities, and clinical categories of refugees. For Sethi, "Babak" is fundamentally an exploration of what endures and survives profound displacement: genuine tenderness, human dignity, humor, the universal need to belong, and humanity’s latent capacity to recognize ourselves in someone whose life initially appears vastly different from our own.
At present, "Babak" is actively developing at the treatment stage. Sethi is currently penning the screenplay’s first draft, supported by an Asian Cinema Fund Screenplay Grant that was awarded to the project in July. Prior to its presence in Busan, the feature was developed at the B3 HessenLab and participated in the EFM Fiction Toolbox. Looking ahead, the production team is aggressively pursuing German public funding while actively scouting for ideal international co-production and financing partners to bring the ambitious vision to the screen.
Producer Khaled Homsi of Key Film explains that he was drawn to the project instantly due to its powerful emotional pull and its distinct, uncompromising artistic vision. According to Homsi, Key Film continually focuses its efforts on cross-cultural stories capable of bridging distinct worlds, and he believes "Babak" captures that delicate balance with incredible sensitivity and narrative force.
In Busan, Homsi’s primary objective is to hold strategic meetings with potential international co-production partners, experienced sales agents, and dedicated equity investors. The goal is to build robust, collaborative partnerships spanning across both Asia and Europe as the team meticulously paves the path toward securing full financing and eventually launching principal photography.
Meanwhile, Sethi’s previous feature project, "Kurinji," is advancing rapidly into its pre-production phase. "Kurinji" previously earned the prestigious Kompagnon Fellowship from Berlinale Talents and Perspektive Deutsches Kino in 2022, and subsequently claimed the Co-Production Award at the NFDC Film Bazaar in Goa in 2024. Operating as a complex Indo-French-German co-production, the film has secured financial backing from the CNC’s Aide aux Cinémas du Monde and MFG Baden-Württemberg. With its lead actors, vital crew members, and shooting locations now firmly in place, "Kurinji" is scheduled to begin filming in Kerala this December.
