Baba, a poet and former teacher, lives with his family in one of many tarpaulin-covered tents at the Jalozai camp, southeast of Peshawar, in Pakistan, which was originally set up to house refugees fleeing the civil war in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
Jalozai has welcomed thousands of internally displaced people in recent years, including Baba and his family, who were forced off their land by fighting between the Pakistan Army and insurgents. Baba’s son scrapes together a living by selling balloons and carting around a film projector.
The film simply and powerfully observes Baba’s plight, his futile attempts to kill time, his desperate desire to leave the camp and return to his village, and the larger struggles of other refugees at Jalozai. The story takes a dramatic turn when Baba disappears.
