Payal Sethi's 'Babak' Bridges Afghan and Ukrainian Lives at Busan Market

Director Payal Sethi will bring "Babak," a drama about an Afghan asylum seeker pushed out of German temporary housing to make room for Ukrainian refugees, to the Asian Project Market at this year's Busan International Film Festival's Asian Contents & Film Market (ACFM).

The project is at treatment stage, with Sethi writing the screenplay's first draft under an Asian Cinema Fund Screenplay Grant awarded in July. It was previously developed at the B3 HessenLab and took part in the EFM Fiction Toolbox.

What is the story?

Babak, an Afghan asylum seeker in Germany, loses his temporary housing as the country takes in large numbers of Ukrainians escaping the war. Among the new arrivals are Alena and her eight-year-old son Viktor, still waiting for news from the front about the boy's father. While Babak fights to bring his own family over safely, he and Viktor grow close. The boy's longing for a father stirs feelings Babak has long suppressed. As red tape tightens around him and he edges toward illegal options, Babak faces a choice about how far he will go for the people he loves.

Sethi started writing after reading reports of Afghan refugees being moved out of temporary shelters in Germany. What caught her attention, she says, was two uprooted groups suddenly being ranked against each other by need.

The story's roots run deeper. Sethi read Rabindranath Tagore's "Kabuliwala" as a child, and her grandfather moved from Lahore to Calcutta (now Kolkata) at the partition of India and Pakistan. "He was a stoic and intimidating figure, but could also be very tender with his grandchildren, and this is the essence of my protagonist too," she says.

What does Sethi want the film to do?

"I want this film to exist beyond the abstract ways through which we often discuss migration – numbers, policies, nationalities, categories of refugees," Sethi says. "For me, 'Babak' is about what survives displacement: tenderness, dignity, humor, the need to belong, and our capacity to recognize ourselves in someone whose life initially seems very different from our own."

Who is producing, and what happens in Busan?

Producer Khaled Homsi of Key Film says he responded at once to the project's emotional pull and distinctive vision. "At Key Film, we focus on cross-cultural stories that bridge distinct worlds, and 'Babak' captures that balance with incredible sensitivity," he says.

In Busan, Homsi wants to meet international co-producers, sales agents and equity investors. "We want to build strong strategic partnerships across Asia and Europe as we pave the way toward financing and principal photography," he says. The team is also applying for German public funding.

What's next for Sethi?

Sethi's previous project, "Kurinji," received the Kompagnon Fellowship from Berlinale Talents and Perspektive Deutsches Kino in 2022 and won the Co-Production Award at the NFDC Film Bazaar in Goa in 2024. The Indo-French-German co-production, backed by the CNC's Aide aux Cinémas du Monde and MFG Baden-Württemberg, is now in pre-production with lead actors, crew and locations in place. It will shoot in Kerala in December.

Busan's market could prove decisive for "Babak": with a first draft underway and German funding applications pending, the project's path to principal photography runs through the partnerships Homsi hopes to secure in Asia and Europe.