DJ Ahmet

Georgi Unkovski's first feature, from North Macedonia, follows fifteen year old Ahmet, who herds sheep and comes from a tobacco harvesting family in a remote Yörük village. When he discovers electronic dance music he finds himself caught between his father's rigid expectations, a conservative community and his first love, a girl already promised to someone else. The director spent five years developing the project and has said casting was eighty percent of the work: with his casting director he saw over three thousand children from Macedonia's Turkish minority before narrowing to sixty. Arif Jakup, who plays the lead, is not a professional actor; he had just finished primary school, comes from the village where the film was shot, and like his character belongs to a family that has picked tobacco for generations. The country's Turkish minority numbers around one hundred thousand, four percent of the population. The film won two prizes at Sundance, the Audience Award in World Cinema Dramatic and a Special Jury Award for Creative Vision. In Turkey it met a curious fate: despite being set in a Turkish speaking village, its release was postponed twice and it drew four thousand two hundred thirty six admissions over two weeks. Who it's for: Viewers drawn to minority life in the Balkans and coming of age stories where music is the escape. Who it's not for: Not for anyone seeking an unpredictable narrative, since critics found it visually striking but familiar in plot.