Delbaran

A community along the border of Iran and Afghanistan becomes an uneasy refuge for a number of illegal aliens, with the dilemma of one 14-year-old orphan providing the focus in a film from Iranian director Abolfazl Jalili. Kaim (Kaim Ailzadeh) is a boy who escaped from Afghanistan into Iran after his mother was killed during a bombing raid; his father, an Afghan soldier, is still in the field and has not been heard from in months. Kaim has been taken in by Khale and Khan, a married couple who run a small cafe in the border town of Delbarn, where Kaim earns his keep by helping out. Mahdabi (Ahmad Mahdavi) is the chief of police in Delbaran, and he devotes much of his time to rounding up illegal immigrants, but given the steady stream of undocumented visitors who pass through the borders, there’s only so much he can do. As Kaim struggles to avoid the authorities and hold on to the small share of stability he’s found with Khale and Khan, the couple discover their business is in jeopardy when the construction of a new road threatens to route traffic away from their cafe. Delbaran received the Special Jury Prize at the 2001 Locarno Film Festival. —allmovie guide