Third Land Director Farzad Khoshdast on Filming Iranian Refugees in Turkey: 'Extremely Tense and Frightening'

In his new documentary Third Land, Iranian émigré director Farzad Khoshdast follows an Iranian engineer, his wife Hananeh, and their son as they navigate life in permanent limbo as refugees in Turkey. The film, which is screening this week at the Ji.hlava Documentary Film Festival, captures the daily contradictions and precarious existence of a family caught between borders, unable to return home or fully settle elsewhere. Khoshdast, himself an Iranian living in exile, spent months embedded with the family, documenting their struggles with bureaucracy, discrimination, and the psychological toll of displacement. He describes the experience as 'extremely tense and frightening,' not only because of the family’s vulnerability but also due to the risks of filming undocumented migrants in a country where refugees face constant surveillance and deportation threats. The documentary sheds light on the broader humanitarian crisis of Iranian asylum seekers in Turkey, where many wait years for resettlement with little legal protection or social support. By centering on one family’s intimate story, Third Land humanizes the statistics and challenges viewers to confront the human cost of closed borders and failed asylum systems. As global displacement reaches record highs, Khoshdast’s film is a timely reminder that behind every refugee number is a family fighting for dignity and a place to call home.