Flee is making history today by being the first movie ever to get nominations for the Academy Awards on the Best Animated Feature Film, Best Documentary Feature, and Best International Feature Film categories. Using animation to reconstruct the life story of Afghan refugee Amin Nawabi, Flee hails from Danish-French documentary filmmaker Jonas Poher Rasmussen (Searching for Bill).
Flee made its world premiere at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, where it was awarded the Grand Jury Prize for World Cinema – Documentary. Since then, the movie has been exhibited in several film festivals worldwide, hauling dozens of awards and nominations, including Annecy International Animated Film Festival’s Cristal prize for Best Feature and a British Independent Film Award. Besides telling a touching story that helps to humanize the struggles of refugees, Flee was also praised by critics for blending archive footage, testimonials, and animated recreations of real-life events to stretch the boundaries that define what a documentary really yes.
Nawabi left Afeganhistan when he was still a child, moving to Russia with his family before ending up alone in Rasmussen’s Danish hometown at the age of 15. Convinced by the filmmaker to share his story, Nawabi retold his harrowing journey for the first time during the production of Flee. The film, then, also follows Nawabi’s process of remembering his story and reflecting on what led him to hide the truth about his past for so long.
Flee will be competing for the Best Animated Feature Film Oscar with Disney’s Encanto and Raya and the Last Dragon, Disney and Pixar’s Luca, and Netflix’s The Mitchells vs. the Machines. While every other entry on the list is a family-friendly feature, Flee breaks the pattern by offering a raw and brutal look at the reality of refugees, which might help it to grab the voter’s attention.
The competition is also tight in the Best International Feature Film category, which includes the favorite Japanese Drive My Car, which also got Best Picture and Best Director nominations. Other nominees include Italy’s The Hand of God, Bhutan’s Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom, and Norway’s The Worst Person in the World. Finally, for the Best Documentary Feature Prize, Flee will be competing with Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised), Ascension, Attica, and Writing with Fire.
Flee was executive produced by Riz Ahmed and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and produced by Monica Hellström and Signe Byrge Sørensen. Flee was released by Neon and Participant and is available right now on digital and VOD.