Heiners Filmseiten – Young Ahmed (en)

Young Ahmed (Le jeune Ahmed)

Spain title: El joven Ahmed
Greek title: Ο νεαρός Άχμεντ
Russian title: Молодой Ахмед
Original title: Le jeune Ahmed

Drama – Belgium, France
Production year: 2018
Movie length: 84 minutes

Director: Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne
Writer: Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne
Cinematograph: Benoît Dervaux

Movie description:

A Belgian teenager hatches a plot to kill his teacher after embracing an extremist interpretation of the Quran.

Ahmed is a 13-year-old Muslim boy in a small Belgian town, who lacks a father figure and his mother is struggling to handle him and his sister. Inspired by a cousin who has gone off to be a jihadi fighter, Ahmed has become radicalized by a local extremist imam.

Ahmed, a Muslim teenager who lives in Belgium, becomes radicalized by a local extremist imam and tries to kill his Muslim – yet, in his eyes, »heretic« – teacher.
True to their humanistic, observational approach, the Dardenne brothers focus, once again, on a confused, troubled adolescent. In search of his own path in life, Ahmed, who seems to have been a relatively normal teen under the radar, mirrors the delusions of a disoriented world, attracted to dangerous ideologies, contemplating violence. However controversial Ahmed’s situation appears to be, perhaps too far gone to save, as per usual, it is empathy that has the last word in Dardenne storytelling.

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