Flee (Flugt, Denmark, 2021) won the 2021 Nordic Council Film Prize. It tells the extraordinary true story of Amin, a well-educated and successful man in Denmark who’s about to get married. A secret that he’s kept hidden for more than twenty years threatens to destroy the life he’s built for himself. When his boyfriend, Kasper, proposes to him, he’s gripped by fear. No one really knows the whole truth about his past.
Amin recounts his happy childhood in Kabul, Afghanistan in the 1980s, with A-ha playing on his walkman and a poster of Jean Claude Van Damme pinned to the boys’ room in the family home. But he also recounts the ruthless civil war that transforms his safe and loving everyday life into a war zone and divides his family. The war compels 11-year-old Amin to flee, a journey which takes him five years and ultimately results in him arriving in Denmark completely on his own.
The film primarily uses animation, and weaves together a blanket of images and memories that tell a deeply touching and original story about a young man who struggles with his traumatic past to find his true self and what it means to belong.
The film is directed by Jonas Poher Rasmussen who wrote the script together with the film’s main character, Amin Nawabi. The film was nominated in three Oscar categories in 2022. (Best Animated Feature, Best Documentary Feature, Best International Film Feature).
Length: 89 min
Age restriction: 12 years
Language: Danish with English subtitles
Free admission!
