The mostly animated documentary 'Flee' is relevant to both the withdrawal from Afghanistan and the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine.
“It’s rare to get a film that is so timely and speaks so much to world events and the moment we’re living in right now,” Riz Ahmed, the actor and rapper who’s an executive producer on the movie, says via email.young boy escaped Afghanistan’s civil war as the mujahideen gained power more than three decades ago.
Nawabi would end up in a tiny Danish town, where he met Rasmussen at age 16. They became close and have now been friends for a quarter-century, but it would be years before Nawabi felt safe enough to share his full experiences with him. “These stories are so traumatic for him,” says the Copenhagen-based director, who calls their conversational process an “unburdening” that was “a big relief for him.
Rasmussen says one theme he emphasized was that a person’s status as a refugee should not define who they are. The director wants viewers to appreciate that the real-life Amin is now an accomplished man in a loving relationship in his adopted land, long after Hollywood films inspired some of his early fantasies about men, as depicted in “Flee.”
Rasmussen is heartened by the open response to “Flee” at festivals: “I’ve been approached at screenings around the world where people come to me and say: ‘This is not just his story — this is“I really believe in storytelling as a way to understand ourselves, and our art is kind of doing that,” he says. “Personally, being able to work on these subjects about war and love and hate and death and all these things, you know — I think it’s really what keeps me sane, as well.
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