Flee (2022)
Director: Jonas Poher Rasmussen
The war in Eastern Europe has dominated global headlines in recent years, with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine displacing millions and costing countless lives. It is a tragic chapter in a long history of conflicts that have reshaped families and forced people to seek safety far from home. Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s Danish animated documentary Flee offers a profoundly human perspective on the trauma and resilience behind headlines and statistics. Told through the first-person testimony of one man, the film invites viewers to consider the lived experience of asylum seekers and the moral obligations of societies that receive them.
Flee centers on Amin Nawabi, an Afghan man who fled his home with his family after civil war erupted in the early 1990s. Through intimate interviews, Amin recounts a childhood shaped by upheaval, uncertainty and survival. He speaks candidly about his relationships, his identity, and the losses his family endured. His voice—at once vulnerable and resolute—anchors a story that extends far beyond one life. While Amin’s journey is singular, it echoes the experiences of countless refugees whose personal histories are often reduced to impersonal statistics.
Recognized by the Academy in 2022 with nominations for Documentary Feature, International Feature and Animated Feature, Flee stands out for its hybrid form. The film blends intimate documentary interviews with animation to protect its subject’s identity and to dramatize memory in ways that live footage sometimes cannot. Amin’s name in the film is a pseudonym, and animation provides anonymity while allowing the film to visualize traumatic moments that would otherwise be difficult to represent. This approach creates an emotional immediacy that helps viewers empathize with what displacement truly entails.
Executive producers on the film include actor-producer Riz Ahmed and actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, whose involvement supported international distribution and increased visibility for a project that addresses both refugee experience and LGBTQIA+ identity. Amin’s story also foregrounds the intersection of sexual identity and asylum: he is a gay man whose private life complicates the prospect of reuniting with family and building a life in a new country. This dimension deepens the film’s relevance in contemporary debates about asylum policy and the treatment of vulnerable migrants.
As an artistic choice, the film’s animation has generated discussion. Some critics have argued that the visual style does not always reach the expressive heights of the year’s most celebrated animated features. Yet the decision to animate is not merely stylistic: it is pragmatic and ethical. By using a hand-drawn-inspired aesthetic, the filmmakers protect Amin while giving viewers a way into memories that are fragmentary, dreamlike and often traumatic. In many sequences the animation heightens emotion, translating sensory details and internal states into images that foster connection and understanding.
At its core, however, Flee remains a documentary driven by testimony. The power of the film rests primarily in Amin’s storytelling—his honesty, his moments of despair and hope, and the quiet dignity with which he recounts events that no child should endure. That narrative force is the film’s most important contribution. It turns an individual life into a witness against policies and attitudes that dehumanize those in flight. By presenting one person’s story with clarity and care, the film calls on viewers to reconsider prevailing assumptions about migration, asylum and national responsibility.
Documentary cinema often succeeds by illuminating realities that audiences might otherwise overlook; Flee does this effectively. It may not rely on flashy animation or sensational cinematic tricks, but it doesn’t need to. The film’s essential achievement is to render Amin’s experience palpable and urgent. In doing so, it becomes a compelling argument for empathy: for recognizing that behind every refugee statistic is a life marked by love, fear and the instinct to survive.
Seen in the context of global events and shifting asylum policies, Flee is both a testament and a warning. It reminds viewers that migration crises are not abstract problems but human stories that demand humane responses. Whether used in classrooms, festivals or public conversations about refugee protection, the film has the potential to shift perspectives by centering the voices it represents.
16/24