IFFK 2025: DJ Ahmet—a crowd-pleasing feature on teenage camaraderie

From the land that gave rise to geniuses like Emir Kusturica comes an almost fable-like, fun-filled, and affectionate story that prizes the oddities of youth, and scorns at living life in autopilot.

In DJ Ahmet, being screened in the World Cinema category at the 30th International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK), the 15-something Ahmet sets the tone for an infectiously joyous feature set on the Balkan grasslands of rural North Macedonia. Director Georgi M. Unkovski gives a clear entertainer that banks on the performances of its three leading young actors. In a coming-of-age film the characters are bound for an adventure of sorts. In the lead-up to this is where we encounter the gleeful bits of the film. Life too happens.

The fun, one finds, relies mostly on the eponymous Ahmet, played by Arif Jakup. He is picked up early from school by his father (Aksel Mehmet), only to go home to tend to the sheep, adhering to his old man’s command. Ahmet always goes on about his business with his baby brother Naim (Agush Agushev) in tow—an angelic duo that leaves one smiling.

Enter Aya (Dora Akan Zlatanova), the girl next door who is seemingly way out of Ahmet’s league. No, they are not bumping into each other casually. But how they grow less obscure and more inseparable is what the film beholds.

If the hapless lad is forced to be an adult by his father, the girl who’s not much older than him, is about to be married off by her family. The underlying desperation to stray from their mundane lives is telling.

Balkan cinema

DJ Ahmet borrows from Balkan cinema’s tradition of lacing genres with magical realism. We have seen them often blending folklore, surrealism, and harsh realities. Here, a simple dramedy dabbles in magical realism, a familiar narrative intertwined by a few fantastical elements.

One of the sheep goes missing just as Ahmet, one fine night, sets off behind Aya after seeing her drifting into the backwoods. All three have a night of revelling at a rave inside the woods. Euphoric yet forbidden.

No longer obscure to each other, the rapport shared by Ahmet and Aya develops thereupon. The bond grows into camaraderie, intimacy, and later a sense of solidarity. This plot here is expected but when they club their energies in defiance, one of the film’s recurring lines resonates, “When you have a problem it’s important to not be alone…”

If Ahmet and Aya are straying from the pre-determined paths the world has set for them, the odd sheep did too. Was the animal born to be just reared and herded? When the animal returns in one shape, but hilariously painted pink, one wonders, is Ahmet or Aya trying to be the pink sheep of their families?

DJ Ahmet won the Special Jury Award for Creative Vision and the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival. The reception it received during the first screening at the 30th IFFK on December 15 could easily pitch this film as one of the crowd favourites of this year. The film will next play at 8 p.m. on December 17 at Nishagandhi.