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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Wendy Ide

Fremont review – utterly delightful Jarmuschian drama

Fremont Babak Jalali Donya United States Taliban Anaita Wali Zada California
an overhead shot of a young woman lying face up in bed, her arms outside the blanket
‘Magnetic’: newcomer Anaita Wali Zada as Donya in Fremont. Photograph: -

The fourth film from Iranian-American director Babak Jalali is an utter delight: a wry, Jarmuschian musing on the human connections and possibilities that spark in the most unexpected places.

Donya (a magnetic performance from newcomer Anaita Wali Zada) worked as an Afghan translator for the US before the Taliban returned to power. Now she has a tiny bedsit in Fremont, California surrounded by other Afghans who fled the regime. And she works in a fortune cookie factory, composing enigmatic mottoes to be enclosed in a crunchy sugar casing. She’s one of the lucky ones. But Donya can’t help feeling that her own fortune is a blank slip, her hopes for the future erased by her exile. So one day she sends a message out to the world on a cookie slip: “Desperate for a dream”, with her name and number.

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