Amin and his family’s treacherous journey from Afghanistan to Scandinavia had many stops-Russia and Estonia among them- and many modes of travel, including planes, small boats and large shipping containers. ” To create that reality, he peppered the film with documentary footage. Amin is on this journey because of historical events that took place in the world we all live in. Important to Rasmussen was reminding people that “ this is a real story. “ We could revitalize his past in animation without reenactments with actors, or trying to recreate Afghanistan in the 1980s somewhere else. However, for this particular story, it also felt more honest. “ It takes a lot of time, and a lot of people ,” says Rasmussen. ” Should the details of a story of escape from one’s homeland really matter that much? Sometimes they can be a choice between life and death.īut animation was also a hurdle that needed to be overcome. “ The fact that he could still keep control and not be public about it enabled him to start sharing.
After all these years he still carried with him the fear of being found out. ” Animation offered the solution for telling the story honestly while keeping Amin’s identity a secret. Both because he was traumatized, but also because he didn’t want to be victimized. “I met Amin when I was 15 years old and I had always been curious about his story ,” Rasmussen tells INTO over zoom. He’s referred to in the film as just Amin, to keep his identity hidden. He just wanted to tell the story of his friend. These are some of the questions that Flee presents.įlee’ s director Jonas Poher Rasmussen didn’t make this film to answer these questions.
Will saying the absolute truth grant me the safety I need? Or will keeping a little something out of my story make the people holding my fate – those scary immigration officers at airports and border crossings – grant me that release with ease? Should the details of a story of escape from one’s homeland really matter that much? Sometimes they can be a choice between life and death. There’s always a line refugees are afraid to cross. As a refugee myself, I have not seen that particular perspective presented before. While presenting a familiar enough story about an Afghani queer man who escaped to Denmark in the late 1980s, it stands out by showing the dichotomy between the story an asylum seeker must tell to combat a bureaucratic immigration system that criminalizes them and the real harrowing story of escape that they hold deep in their hearts. Second, it offers a new perspective on the refugee story.
First, it’s an animated documentary, recreating a true story through imagined drawings in a medium that’s about factual truth. The “Joyride” box set also offers a chance to hear two previously unreleased demos of songs originally released by Per’s former group Gyllene Tider, who in 1984 tried to break the international market with the album “Heartland Café”.Flee, the new documentary out on limited release this week, is unusual in a couple of ways. Twelve of the songs are previously unreleased, among them the first recording of ”Hotblooded”, which originally was meant to be the album’s opening track until ”Joyride” knocked it down a notch, giving the album and the upcoming “Join the Joyride” World Tour its name. A richly illustrated 32 page booklet tells the story. This autumn the 30th Anniversary of ”Joyride” will be celebrated with the release of a a 3-CD box, containing the original release as well as previously unreleased or hard-to-get material, that paints a fuller picture of a unique time in pop history. On May 1, the title track zoomed all the way up to #1 position on the Billboard Hot 100 chart – setting a record no Scandinavian group or artist has yet been able to break, helping to make “Joyride” a 11+ million seller. ”Joyride” was the album that was supposed to cement Roxette’s new-found status as a global hit-makers. This year, Swedish group Roxette celebrates the 30th Anniversary of their third album “Joyride”, following the band’s spectacular global breakthrough with “Look Sharp!” in 1989.