Underplayed Gems

Flee (2021)

Flee poster
Original title
Flugt
Directed by
Jonas Poher Rasmussen
Genre
docudrama, independent film, animated documentary, adult animated film
Country
Slovenia, Estonia, France, Netherlands
Runtime
1h 23m
Rated
PG-13
Rating
7.7 of 10 from 398 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

More films like thisWatch the trailer

or watch the trailer on YouTube

How it feels

A man tells a close friend his hidden story of fleeing Afghanistan as a refugee. The film uses animation to reveal the trauma and secrecy of his past.

intimatereflectivesomberpersonalpoignantrestrainedquietly emotionalserious

What happens

Flee (Danish: Flugt) is a 2021 independent adult animated documentary film directed by Jonas Poher Rasmussen. An international co-production with Denmark, France, Norway, and Sweden, it follows the story of a man under the alias Amin Nawabi, Rasmussen's high school friend, who shares his hidden past of fleeing his home country of Afghanistan to Denmark for the first time. Riz Ahmed and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau serve as executive producers, and serve as the English-language dub version voices for Nawabi and Rasmussen. The world premiere of the film was at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival on January 28, 2021, where it won the Grand Jury Prize in the World Cinema Documentary section. It was released in theaters in the United States on December 3, 2021, by Neon and Participant. The film received widespread acclaim from film festivals and critics, with critical praise for animation, story, thematic content, subject matter, and LGBT representation. It also incorporates archival film footage of events in Afghanistan from the time Amin fled. The film was frequently ranked one of the best films of 2021, and garnered numerous accolades, mainly for animated and documentary categories including Best Feature Film at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival and Best Animated Feature – Independent at 49th Annie Awards, both making the first animated documentary film to win. The film was selected as the Danish entry for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film, where it was selected as one of the five finalists and became the second foreign-language animated film after Waltz with Bashir (2008). The film was also nominated in the Best Documentary Feature and Best Animated Feature categories, becoming the first film ever to be nominated in all three of those categories. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

This page is from Underplayed Gems. Not quite it? You can browse by genre, country and year, or take this one into the 3D catalogue and ask the Catbot for something closer.