Premise: A documentary about how an Afghani immigrant came to be a refugee in Europe.
This was the big surprise movie for me at Sundance. Initially, I passed it over, because an animated documentary about a gay Afghani refugee sounded really busy; like it was trying to make up for a lack on content with an abundance of style. However, it's much more strategic than that. You see, the documentary has some secrets: ones the filmmakers didn't even know about until they were making it.
The film is a little odd when it begins. It has these fully animated scenes of interviews with Amin, the now grown refugee. They are cryptic and I wasn't sure why these interviews, which were clearly based on real-interview footage they had, were animated. It cuts to some scenes around the house with Amin and his boyfriend. I started writing the movie in my head: He was gay in a conservative country. Saw a lot of discrimination for it. Something bad happened in his village and he was let into a European country for protection. He then slowly came to accept himself. It's not a bad movie, and while some of that was a bit true, I was pretty far off. We start finding out details about Amin like, his entire family died, it wasn't easy for him to get to Europe, and he got accepted to post-grad at an Ivy League school.
I'll stay a little cryptic from here. Amin's story of how he got to where he is from Afghanistan is filled with twists and unexpected hardships. It's as much a story of his journey as a refugee as a story of coming to terms with his sexuality. Even the animation is revealed to be necessary as well as just a nice stylistic flourish.
This is absolutely one of the gems of Sundance this year. It's a unique vision and tells a compelling story. Jonas Poher Ramussen is definitely a filmmaker I'll be looking out for moving forward.
Verdict: Strongly Recommend
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