Consider This from NPR - The Film 'Flee' Reveals The Truth About A Man's Untold Refugee Story

Episode Date: March 25, 2022

The film Flee has already made Oscars history: it's the first to be nominated for best documentary, animated feature and international film. Flee tells the story of a boy whose family left Afghanistan in the 1990s. Now an adult and identified by an alias to protect him and his family, Amin Nawabi reveals a painful secret about his childhood journey to Denmark—a secret he has told almost no one.The film opens with the question: "What does the word 'home' mean to you?"Nawabi gives NPR his first interview with a news outlet, along with the director of "Flee," Jonas Poher Rasmussen. In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment to help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

What does the word home mean to you? That question opens the animated documentary, Flee. For Amin Nawabi, home was Kabul, Afghanistan, until the Mujahideen took over when he was a child, forcing him to escape to Europe. He had not shared the details of that story, even with his closest friends, before he agreed to make this movie with one of his oldest friends. I wanted to tell that story also to the entire world, that there's more into this concept of being a refugee.

There's human beings behind this concept, and they're not much different than everybody else, and we need to see the people and not just an abstract concept. Amin Nawabi is a pseudonym to protect his true identity. The old friend who convinced him to make this movie is Jonas Poe Rasmussen, the director. They started working on this project 10 years ago. We've been talking about this, discussing this for quite some time. But I think in recent years, I also wanted to tell this story because I felt that there weren't many stories

about refugees. We knew very little, and what we knew were often not very positive, and often people had very little understanding what it means to be a refugee. We never really heard about refugees, about their lives, their experiences, prior to their journey in their home countries.

The movie has already made Oscars history. It's nominated for Best Documentary, Animated Feature, and International Film. Nawabi found that watching his own story through animation gave him new insights into his experience. Revisiting these experiences, I kind of felt that I knew how things would be or how I felt back then, but it was not the same so many years after. Like when he was in Russia and he got kicked out of school because he didn't have proper legal documentation. I think it was a lot of different emotions. I was, of course, sad for that could happen

in that as refugees, your basic human rights are being violated. I mean, everybody has, I mean, in the West, at least the right to go to school. Very few people are denied that right. But also that sometimes the word can be so vicious. Consider this. Amin Nawabi has kept a secret his whole life out of fear. Now he's sharing it with the world. From NPR, I'm Ari Shapiro. It's Friday, March 25th. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies. Send, spend, or receive money internationally, and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees.

Download the WISE app today, or visit wise.com. T's and C's apply. It's Consider This from NPR. Even though Amin Nawabi tells his own story in Flea, he is still protective of his privacy. He uses a pseudonym, and animation conceals his appearance. And he hasn't given interviews to any news organizations until he agreed to speak with us, along with director Jonas Porrasmasen. Because the friendship between these two men is so central to the film, I asked him to begin by telling us about how they met.

Amin went first. I think Jonas was one of the first friends that I met in Denmark. And we used to take the bus to train station and then to the high school where we went to school together. I have to say, I noticed Amin before he noticed me because I grew up in this very small rural village. But I noticed him one day on the train because at the the time we didn't have a lot of refugees in the area

and Amin was so well dressed he really stood out and I remember thinking to myself man that guy looks cool and then I was kind of surprised that we got off at the same bus stop you know and then we started meeting up at this bus stop every morning. And since then we yeah we've been quite involved in each other's lives we have celebrated new year's evening each year we travel together we experience a lot of intimate moments such as heartbreaks and falling in love at the same time and experiencing a lot of joyous but also this joyous moment. We always supported each other and always disclosed personal, intimate topics. So there was always this easy approach.

You've been so close for so long and been through so much together. And also there was this secret that you were keeping from Jonas, from almost everybody in your life. Yes, I was quite hesitant to talk about it. And I managed somehow to keep it to myself for a really, really long time. But of course, I mean, with Jonas, I always felt comfortable.

And I think he was the first person among my friends that I disclosed that I was gay. And it was not very long after we met each other. So there was, I felt comfortable in Jonas's company. And it is also not surprising that I decided to tell him my story. I want us to be able to speak freely. And so I'm going to disclose something that could be considered a spoiler, although it comes relatively early in the film, which is that the human traffickers who helped you get to Europe told you, you had to say that your family had all died in Afghanistan and that you were alone. Otherwise, you might not get refugee status. And in fact, we learn in the film, your family is alive and they're living in other European countries.

Jonas, when you learned that truth that had been hidden from you by your close friend for so many years, how did you react? I was, of course, thrilled. And I think, you know, I had expected to hear really bad stories because there were these rumors going around in high school, you know, that, you know, Amin had walked all the way from Afghanistan to Denmark and that he had seen all of his family getting killed. So I think when we started talking about Amin's story, I kind of had prepared myself that I was going to hear some really harrowing things. And this was really one of the light moments, you know,

to understand how close he still was with his family and that they still met up and to understand that he had a lot of family around in Europe and that they could meet up still was really heartwarming, of course. I mean, you say in the film that at one point an ex-boyfriend who you told the truth to tried to blackmail you with that information. Now that the story is public, even though you are still using a pseudonym and you're concealed by animation in the film, do you feel a sense of freedom or fear or what's the experience?

I definitely feel a sense of freedom. I think it's quite limiting to not be able to disclose intimate information about yourself to your friends, to people that you care about. It is quite, quite difficult because I always had to stop myself from telling something that I wanted to tell. Sometimes we did something that reminded me of my family, something I did together with my family, and I wanted to tell. Sometimes we did something that reminded me of my family, something I did together with my family, and I wanted to share that information, but I was always prevented because of this false narrative that I didn't have any family. So that

was quite difficult to not be able to share this kind of information. So yes, I feel very free. And also I feel that my friends, they know me for who I am. We're seeing another refugee crisis right now as Ukrainians flee into Poland. Is there something beyond your own story that you hope people take away from this film? I think what is happening in Ukraine is horrible and heartbreaking. And in many ways, this is something that I empathize with what is happening with people who are fleeing and it just reminds me of my family's situation and it is in a way also really hard to process and see this because you really can imagine what you're feeling because you've been there yourself and your family

there and at the same time I think it has been amazing how everybody have been welcoming and being kind and providing help. And I was also very happy that there were so many positive stories and like personal stories, humanizing refugees. But at the same time, I was quite puzzled by the different ways that refugees from Ukraine and refugees from Syria and Afghanistan were treated. Puzzled is a kind way of phrasing it. Puzzled in a way that there were very stark difference how, for example, refugees back in 2015 were welcomed in European countries. It was, to a certain extent, very hostile.

So I hope that people just think that this can happen to anyone. I mean, it can happen in our backyard and it's important to be kind and help people. Jonas? You know, this just really came from our friendship. And because of that, I really hope it brings some nuance to the refugee story because, you know, Amin is a refugee, but he was a refugee. He's not anymore. And he's so much more now you know he's also an academic he's also a house owner and a husband and a cat owner and and all these things that kind of you know two cats two cats yeah so so so there's all these things so to refrain from defining people just by being a refugee, because it's not an identity, it's a circumstance of life,

and it's something you go through, and as Amin said, it's something that can happen to everyone. And I hope this really creates a change in how we perceive refugees, no matter where they come from in the future. Jonas, the friendship is so central to this film. Can you tell us about the first time you met Amin's family after all of these years that you had known him so well? But I haven't. You haven't?

No, not yet. What? Yeah, we were hoping for, you know, a big wedding when Amin Kasper got married. A big Afghan wedding with everything. But then, you know, this pandemic hit and it was a very low-key wedding instead, just the closest friends. So I haven't met them, actually. Amin, when is this going to happen? Well, I mean, the

wedding... I mean, the family meeting, not the wedding, the family meeting. The family meeting hopefully soon. That conversation was with Jonas Pore Rasmussen, the director of the Danish film Flea and also the star of the documentary,

who goes by Amin Nawabi. Flea is the first film ever to be nominated for Best Documentary, Best International Film, and Best Animated Feature. You can find it on Hulu. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Ari Shapiro.