Closing the festival this year is Fremont, a film that follows Donya (Anaita Wali Zada) a former translator from Afghanistan as she tries to re-settle in America after being displaced by the Taliban takeover. Over the past week the film has been earning praise from critics and I got to sit down with Babak Jalali to talk about his focus on the absurdities of everyday moments in the movie to humanize Afghan women and the immigrant experience.
Victoria Tappenden: Why did you decide to call the film Fremont?
Babak Jalali: Fremont is seen as a commuter town; it is a place where you exist in order to go work elsewhere. With most commuter towns or provincial towns, I’m from a provincial town in Iran, you always have a sense that you are forgotten about because you are away from where everything is happening. It also happens to be home to the biggest Afghan population in America.
It just felt natural to stick to the name of the city because even though we don’t show a lot of Fremont, it’s a new place for the main character where she starts from scratch.
VT: The film is all about small moments in Donya’s life even though she’s just been on this epic journey beforehand of evacuating from Afghanistan when the Taliban took over. Why did you choose to focus on those small moments and what were you hoping to get out of it?
BJ: The film is filled with lots of little moments that might otherwise be seen as inconsequential. I am in general always interested in those moments where you feel there is not much going on but in actual fact if you look further into it that is where you see the craziness or the absurdities. Whereas if a sequence is filled with a ton of things happening you kind of lose the essences of those absurdities. I wanted to focus on those little things and the peculiarities that come out.
VT: Why did you want to tell this story, of a former female translator, specifically? And since Donya’s former occupation is so important to the story, why did you decide to then make her work in a fortune cookie factory?
BJ: The reality of life for a lot of former translators is quite bleak. They work in the US military in Afghanistan, they got granted special immigration to come to America to re-settle and once they arrive, they are abandoned far away from home, family, no idea how to move forward. Most of the ones we met were men, but we knew there were female translators as well. I’m Iranian, a large portion of [Iranians] and Afghans share a language and traditions and history, and I have a strong affinity with people from Afghanistan. So I’ve been around Afghan women a lot growing up and most Afghan women I met have been very independent and powerful and had aspirations and hopes and dreams like most other women from anywhere else, but the portrayal of Afghan women in the media and cinema has always been focused on how they are oppressed which is true, but it is not the only thing that is happening. So that’s how it turned into being about a woman who is a translator and who wants to live her life.
And [Donya] working in the fortune cookie factory, that was (co-writer) Carolina (Cavalli’s) idea. We visited one and I was blown away by the aesthetics, but Carolina thought it would be great if she worked in a fortune cookie factory because the film is about the idea of possibility. Fortune cookies are often times silly nonsense, but sometimes you get one you want to keep, and they always allude to possibility.
VT: I wanted to ask about Anaita Wali Zada. Her performance in the film was mesmerizing. Was she the first person you auditioned or the last? What was it like working with her?
BJ: Anaita was the last person we auditioned because there was no need to see anyone else after we saw her. I’ve predominantly worked with non-professional actors in my last films, and in this one there is a mixture of professional and non-professional actors. The role of Donya we did an open casting call through social media and also Afghan community centers in North America. I video called with young Afghan women living all around America, most of them were second generation Afghans. None of the ones I’d seen felt right so it was getting a bit scary. Then Anaita sent an email saying I’m twenty-two, I’ve just arrived from Afghanistan six months ago when the Taliban returned. I escaped in an evacuation flight with my sister, and I left my other siblings behind in Afghanistan and I’ve been resettled in Marland. I’ve never acted before, and my English is not great, but I’m interested. From the moment I saw her she had this great presence and way of being that I found very interesting. When we spoke, she told me her story and I thought okay she’s not a translator but [the story] was very similar to our character. Immediately she was absolutely perfect. I didn’t see anyone else after that and it was a risk but it’s always a risk when you work with a non-professional. But she was so determined, and I felt she would relate so well to the character.
On set she was thrown in the deep end because the first two days of shooting were across Jeremy Allen White. With scheduling we were scared with that. But she just gained so much confidence that it was upwards from there for her.
VT: White Fang and ‘Just Another Diamond Day’ by Vashti Bunyan were two pieces of art integral to the story and Donya’s healing. Did you have any similarly influential movies, music etc. that inspired the film?
BJ: ‘Just Another Diamond Day’ is actually one of my favourite songs. Mostly inspiration came from things like the location, the people, the characters, overall, I’m more influenced by music than films. I try and steer clear of films when I’m making them. There were not particular pieces of art that influenced the film it was more being around the people and the places.
VT: I was surprised at how funny the film was. And that was another special thing about Anaita Wali Zada’s performance – her comedic timing was brilliant. Was it always the idea from the beginning that it would be a funny movie?
BJ: Yes, absolutely. The film is about someone who is displaced…and I think most films that we watch that are about the immigrant experience, and I love a lot of them so it’s nothing against those films, but they do tend to put the onus on the audience to pity that character. They zero in on the nitty-gritty part of their lives or how their situation is dire and grim which I’m not saying it isn’t. But I didn’t want the audience to pity Donya I wanted them to see her as a human being first and foremost and as a young women. Yes, she is from Afghanistan, but she is no different from a twenty-year-old from Scotland, from Germany, Philippines, or Bolivia. On a base level everyone has the same dreams and aspirations to be healthy, to have something to do during the days, perhaps to find companionship. Everything else is a bonus, and those basic things I think everyone shares. I wanted to show someone like that.
VT: For sure, now that you say this, Donya’s sense of humour definitely makes her more relatable. And the way she used humour throughout her difficult situation portrayed her as a strong person. I felt empathy for her but never pity.
BJ: Empathy is good, and I think just showing the absurdities of life helps to see someone as a being, as a person versus an object that you should feel sorry for.
Fremont will be released in cinemas in Scotland on the 15th of September 2023.
This interview has been edited for brevity.
Image issued to The Student for press material by The Corner Shop PR.