Flee (film)

Flee
A group of animated people.
Promotional release poster
DanishFlugt
Directed byJonas Poher Rasmussen
Screenplay by
  • Jonas Poher Rasmussen
  • Amin Nawabi
Produced by
CinematographyMauricio Gonzalez-Aranda
Edited byJanus Billeskov Jansen
Music byUno Helmersson
Production
companies
Distributed by
Release dates
  • January 28, 2021 (2021-01-28) (Sundance)
  • December 3, 2021 (2021-12-03) (United States)
Running time
90 minutes[2]
Countries
  • Denmark
  • France
  • Norway
  • Sweden
  • United Kingdom
  • United States
Languages
Budget$3.4 million[3]
Box office$2 million[4][5]

Flee (Danish: Flugt) is a 2021 independent[6] 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, 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 narrators for the English-language dub version.

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.[7]

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.[8] The film was frequently ranked one of the best films of 2021,[9][10][11][12] 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,[13] where it received one of the five finalists and became the second foreign-language animated film after Waltz with Bashir (2008), along with nominations in the Best Documentary Feature and Best Animated Feature categories, becoming the first film ever to be nominated in all three of those categories.

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference neonparticipant was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ "Flee". Sundance Film Festival. Archived from the original on March 7, 2021. Retrieved January 28, 2021.
  3. ^ "Sundance Documentaries Showcase Enhanced Storytelling Through Animation". Variety. Retrieved January 20, 2022.
  4. ^ "Flee (2021)". The Numbers. Nash Information Services, LLC. Retrieved February 10, 2024.
  5. ^ "Flee (2021)". Box Office Mojo. IMDb. Retrieved March 4, 2022.
  6. ^ 6 Indie And Foreign Animated Features Building Buzz For Oscars 2022|Cartoon Brew
  7. ^ Ramos, Dino-Ray (2 February 2021). "Participant Teams With Neon on Jonas Poher Rasmussen's Documentary 'Flee' – Sundance". Deadline. Retrieved 2 February 2021.
  8. ^ "Flee – Denmark | Nordic cooperation". norden.org. Retrieved 2022-02-20.
  9. ^ Sharf, Zack (2021-07-14). "'Flee' Trailer: Start the Oscar Buzz, This Animated Doc Is One of the Best Films of 2021". IndieWire. Retrieved 2022-02-20.
  10. ^ "The 50 best films of 2021 in the US, No 5: Flee". The Guardian. 2021-12-13. Retrieved 2022-02-20.
  11. ^ Wilkinson, Alissa (2021-12-02). "In Flee, one Afghan refugee's story comes to vibrant, animated life". Vox. Retrieved 2022-02-20.
  12. ^ Hadadi, Roxana. "Flee movie review & film summary (2021) | Roger Ebert". rogerebert.com/. Retrieved 2022-02-20.
  13. ^ "'Flee' selected as Danish Oscar entry". Danish Film Institute. 25 October 2021. Retrieved 25 October 2021.