DJ Ahmet | Диџеј Ахмет (2025) 97 min. Turkish, Macedonian, English
Production companies: Cinema Futura; Alter Vision; Backroom
Production; 365 Films; Analog Vision; Film House Bas Celik; Sektor Film
Cast; Arif Jakup, Agush Agushev, Dora Akan Zlatanova, Aksel Mehmet, Selpin Kerim, Atila Klince
DJ Ahmet is a 2025 drama film directed and written by Georgi
M. Unkovski.[1] It follows the life of a 15-year-old boy, acted by Arif Jakup,
in a rural village in North Macedonia.
The film is centered around the life of 15-year-old boy,
Ahmet, who falls in love for the first time, desires to be a DJ, and contends
with the conservatism of his rural village in North Macedonia.
A collaboration between North Macedonia, the Czech Republic,
Serbia, and Croatia, the film debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in the
World Cinema Dramatic Competition category on January 23, 2025. Following
Unkovski's 2019 short film and 2020 Sundance entry, Sticker, DJ Ahmet took five
years to create with numerous difficulties in funding and production.
The film's budget was 978,000 euros. It was supported by the
North Macedonia Film Agency, Eurimages, the Croatian Audiovisual Centre, Film
Center Serbia, the Czech Film Fund, and the South Eastern Europe Cinema
Network.
DJ Ahmet took five years to make, initially being turned
down shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic. Financing took place from 2021 to
2023. Most of the film's production was then completed in the two years leading
up to its Sundance Film Festival premiere. Principal photography took 36 days
near the end of 2023; filming took place in the villages of Kodzalia, Ali Koç,
and Skopje. Post-production followed for a year.
DJ Ahmet premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival on
January 23, 2025. On December 11, 2024, Films Boutique announced that it had
acquired international rights for DJ Ahmet.
The Hollywood Reporter lauded the "solid naturalistic performances" of the film's cast, with particular attention to Jakup, and stated it "has a slick, crowd-pleasing quality that could entice streamers or select distributors. The film playfully critiques certain Muslim customs, but never in a demeaning way, while providing a heartwarming coming-of-age narrative that’s a tad predictable."
ScreenAnarchy lauded Unkovski as a "smart
director" and said that the film "is both wildly exotic and
completely down to earth, tied to a specific culture yet dealing with
universally recognizable problems. It's an auspicious debut."
REVIEW
"DJ Ahmet’ Review: Wondrous North Macedonian Drama Mixes Upbeat
Music, Punchy Humor and Pathos
An unforgettable ensemble, laugh-out-loud comedy and heartsore drama make writer-director Georgi M. Unkovski’s story of a teenage boy defying his traditional community feel like a revelation.
The first time 15-year-old Ahmet (Arif Jakup) smiles broadly on-screen lives up to the cliché that someone’s infectious grin can light up a room. Amid the bright colors of an EDM festival happening in the middle of the forest, the teen with wistful eyes surrenders to an upbeat tune and to the crowd of young people around him. By that point, most viewers will already have been irremediably disarmed by “DJ Ahmet,” Georgi M. Unkovski’s music-soaked, delightfully humorous and unpretentiously stylish debut set in a remote North Macedonian village.
But that moment of enjoyment is only a brief, illusory
respite from Ahmet’s laborious responsibilities herding sheep and caring for
his kid brother Naim (Agush Agushev), the picture of innocence and
adorableness, who hasn’t spoken since their mother died. From the onset,
Unkovski introduces a rich soundtrack that mixes modern English-language songs
with tracks specific to the region, as well as Alen Sinkauz and Nenad Sinkauz’s
larger-than-life score, which sounds as if Ahmet were a mythical paladin on a
quest. To express how inextricable the relationship is between the story and
the music that scores it, the director uses slow-motion in precise instances,
demanding the audience be present with how it is experienced Ahmet, Naim and
eventually Aya (the charmingly spunky Dora Akan Zlatanova as a girl visiting
from Germany to go through with her arranged marriage.
Grieving his wife by forbidding his children from listening
to music, Ahmet’s father (Aksel Mehmet) shows little compassion for his teenage
son. Concerned about the young one’s muteness, the stern parent spends plenty
of time and money taking him to visit a dubious healer, so much that he
unenrolls Ahmet from school so he can care for their animals. Mild-mannered
Ahmet doesn’t protest, but a visible heaviness weighs on him. Thankfully,
Unkovski avoids turning the father completely irredeemable, but paints him as a
product of his environment, with Ahmet representing the promise of a different,
more sensitive masculinity.
In finding Jakup to play his endearing protagonist, Unkovski
discovered a true diamond in the rough whose face exudes the sincerity of an
untainted soul. “I like that you don’t know how to lie,” Aya tells him as the
two (and their little chaperone Naim) hang out away from their respective grim
realities. The extraordinary Jakup, however, doesn’t go for simplistic naiveté
in his quietly soulful performance, but rather communicates Ahmet’s interiority
in a shy smirk or his beaming eyes. Encased in the character’s unimposing
frame, there’s a selfless bravery that prompts him to stand up for others —
especially lovely Naim.
Under the striking golden light that washes over the
pastoral setting, Jakup’s timidly expressive face is captured in striking
close-ups by cinematographer Naum Doksevski (who also shot the kinetic
“Housekeeping for Beginners”). “DJ Ahmet” is a film comprised of striking
visuals and vibrant color. In this corner of the world, traditional attires are
inherently bright, but the filmmakers boost their impact by conceiving the
images to look unassumingly radiant in the way hues mingle in the frame.
At every turn, Unkovski’s perspicacious writing finds
compelling avenues to illustrate the disconnect between the youth plugged into
a world larger than their small mountain community of Yuruk people (a Turkish
ethnic group) via their cell phones and the pastoral and deeply patriarchal
lifestyle that still endures there. Just as effectively, Unkovski derives
universally understandable comedy from culturally specific situations. The
plight of a technology-challenged imam whom Ahmet kindly helps on multiple occasions
is a recurrent side-splitting gag. The sound of Microsoft Windows starting up
has never been so funny. With every perfectly timed joke, including those
involving Ahmet’s missing sheep, one’s admiration for Unkovski’s artistic
vision grows given the tonal feat he accomplishes.
Neither saccharine nor emotionally slight, “DJ Ahmet” is
grounded on the bruising realities of life in patriarchal societies where
there’s little space for men to engage with their emotions or for women to have
full agency over their lives. Unkovski bookends the film with sharp,
dream-based commentary and premonitions by the local elderly women, who discuss
local affairs and encourage Ahmet from afar. Unkovski’s narrative works so that
the adolescent fondness between Ahmet and Aya acts as an empowering catalyst to
defy conventions, whether by performing a “provocative” modern dance number in
front of all the residents or adapting a tractor to become a mobile DJ setup.
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