Madyu’n is a Pakistani film that speaks to the structural injustice of Afghani refugees and their children in Pakistan. The film was made in Quetta, a major city in the Pakistan province of Balochistan which neighbors Afghanistan. Languages spoken in the film include Urdu and Hazargi, commonly spoken in Hazara town, which is in the surrounding areas of Quetta and stems from ethnic groups in Afghanistan. The film  shows how discrimination on families from lost opportunities dampens hopes, leaving many with unfulfilled potential and a struggle to fulfill responsibilities.

The film tells the story of Qumayyudin, the son of Afghani refugees who is refused a scholarship to study poetry. The needs-based scholarship, as explained to him in his interview, is only available to Pakistani citizens. Despite being raised and growing up in Pakistan, his lineage excludes him from the resources of the land his parents worked in to educate him, landing him this interview. The interviewers ask if he can pay the tuition, which is far outside his budget.

It can be assumed that Qumayyudin chose not to pursue further education as any subject would require fees he would not be able to afford. His life becomes a race between fulfilling his obligations to his wife, his mother, and child and finding work that can help sustain him and his family. Working hard hours through manual labor, he still has to take loans from his boss to pay for his mother’s medicine. By the end (and beginning) of the film, Qumayyudin is stuck in a coal mine with his fellow workers. He pines for his wife and mother who have passed, and his child, whom he couldn’t afford to pay for new shoes. In this moment he seems to blame himself as much as he yearns for the life he could have lived.