Escape is a vivid animated story of Afghan refugees | National News

New York (AP) — Jonas Poer Rasmussen was 15 when a boy of the same age arrived alone in a small Danish town.

“He arrived alone and spent time with his family in the immediate vicinity of where I lived,” says Rasmussen. “We met at the bus stop going to high school every morning and made very good friends. Still I was curious about how he got to the village, but he didn’t want to talk about it.”

It will be a long time before Rasmussen’s friends are ready to talk to him or anyone else. About 15 years ago, Rasmussen, who had appeared on the radio by that time, asked about making an audio documentary of his story. He wasn’t ready. But eight years ago, when Rasmussen was in a program to pair documentary filmmakers with animators, he asked again. Now his friends are ready to talk about his family fleeing Kabul, Afghanistan, which was devastated by the war in the 1980s.

“It’s the first time he’s shared a story about what he saw in the movie and what he heard in the movie,” says Rasmussen. “It’s really hard for him to talk.”

“Run away” Opened in some theaters on Friday, it will expand in the coming weeks and use animations to vividly capture the stories of Rasmussen’s friends. Speaking anonymously under the name Amin, he is associated with Rasmussen, a five-year odyssey from Afghanistan to the Soviet Union and Scandinavia. A documentary that vividly shapes Amin’s life and the tragic plight of immigrants. And it’s a movie about sharing secrets — a past that Amin didn’t want to be defined (now he’s a successful scholar in a loving relationship with his fiancé Jasper), but he reluctantly I feel forced to share. It’s a testimony.

Combining painful à clef with colorful animations, “Escape” follows the recent traditions of the film, including: “Waltz with Bashir” by Israeli filmmaker Ari Folman When “Tower”, about 1966 campus photography, To intimately express certain stories, are usually filtered only through dull media such as journalism and traditional documentaries. And it made “Escape” one of the most acclaimed movies of the year. After premiering at the highest documentary-winning Sundance Film Festival, “Flee” won honors from the Gotham Awards, the New York Film Critics Association, and the National Board of Review. This is a submission to the Danish Academy Awards and has the potential to compete for the best animated films, the best documentaries and the best international films.

Rasmussen initially aimed to shorten 20 minutes. But what started as a small therapeutic project hesitated has grown into a global art house sensation.

“I’m sure Amin didn’t expect to share it with so many people,” Rasmussen said with a smile in a recent interview during his trip to New York.

40-year-old Rasmussen was studying hybrid crafting in the film with animation director Kenneth Radekger. The animation includes a scene where he and Amin are talking. Amin, who often lies with his eyes closed, is full of late moments that evoke the courage to follow his path psychologically. Animation is dazzlingly exciting, but for Rasmussen it’s most important in terms of how it helps to hear Amin’s experience without distraction.

“We are exposed to so many stories in the news and feeds of people struggling. If you didn’t, you were lying in bed all day, so you blocked things. But there’s an animation in between, so you can hear what’s actually being said and incorporate it more, “says Rasmussen. “There’s something about listening to a real voice, a real human voice, with animation up. Maybe it’s also related to the animation you’re used to when you were a kid.”

“Escape” also had a big meaning. The crisis struck Europe in 2015 when a wave of immigrants from Syria and other countries arrived in Europe. Denmark sometimes had tough relationships with refugees and tightened immigration policies.Earlier this year it became the first country in Europe Revoke asylum status for some Syrian refugees, Syria told them it was safe enough to return to now.

“I started wanting to talk to my friends. Then there was a refugee crisis in Denmark and Europe in 2015. I felt the need to give refugees a human face.”

Still, that face-Amine-is just a general cartoon. Amin is willing to maintain his anonymity, says Rasmussen, even while he is happy with the film and how it resonates with others. According to the director, Amin can thus walk his life and control when he talks about the past.

However, “escape” has a wide range of reactions that go beyond the individual stories it tells. For Rasmusen, it utilizes the profound and universal human experience, including the experience of his own ancestors. Russian Jewish refugees, his grandmother’s family, took many of the same routes that Amin’s family followed.

“They fled from Russia through the Baltic Sea to Denmark, where she was born in a hotel. Then she applied for asylum but was refused. They moved to Germany. My grandmother was Berlin. At school, she had to do it. When she stood up with a yellow star on her chest, she had to run away again, “says Rasmussen. “This can happen to anyone in the world.”

Follow AP film writer Jake Coil on Twitter. http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP

Copyright 2021 AP communication. all rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission.



Escape is a vivid animated story of Afghan refugees | National News

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