Life in the Shadows

Runtime: 90' / 52'

Expected release: August 2026

Production stage: Production

Budget: €391,440 (50% in place)

1st feature: Yes

Looking for: Financing partners, co-producers, broadcasters, sales agents, festival programmers, buyers & distributors

Synopsis:

A decade after surviving a school bombing, a Hazara filmmaker returns to Quetta, Pakistan, to confront his past. Blending intimate family moments with the ongoing story of persecution and migration, Life in the Shadows is a poetic meditation on loss, resilience, and memory. It is a testimony of survival—and a tribute to a people on the move, carrying home in their memory.

Director’s Profile:

Khadim Dai was born during Afghanistan’s civil war. At the age of two, he fled with his family to Quetta, Pakistan, where he grew up as a refugee with a deep fascination for storytelling, poetry, and folk music. He eventually left Pakistan—but returned years later. While living as a refugee in Indonesia, he began exploring filmmaking, focusing on themes of statelessness and forced displacement.
Khadim worked as a cinematographer on impactful documentaries such as The Staging Post and Chasing Asylum. His short films have been exhibited at the Van Abbemuseum and REDCAT. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Film and Video from the California Institute of the Arts.

Producer’s Profile:

Ilyas Yourish founded Kamay Film in Afghanistan in 2018 to produce films about identity, trauma, history, and memory, rooted in his homeland. After the Taliban’s return in 2021, he was forced into exile and is now based in Belgium. He began his career as a journalist and researcher, spending over a decade traveling across Afghanistan—experiences that continue to shape his cinematic journey.

His debut documentary Kamay premiered at Visions du Réel 2024, won multiple awards, and screened at more than 20 international festivals. Ilyas now leads the Belgian company CONGOO B.V., dedicated to bold, author-driven storytelling. He has co-produced for The Guardian and is currently developing several feature documentaries. His projects have received support from prestigious film foundations and have been presented at major documentary markets in Europe and North America.