Young Ahmed
Original title: Le jeune Ahmed
2019 | 90 minutes | Belgium, France
Director: Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne
Writers: Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne
Languages: French, Arabic
Cannes Film Festival, Best Director
From the famed, multiple award-winning Belgian filmmaking brothers comes a powerful and timely drama about individuals and societies torn by religious radicalization.
Ahmed is a 13-year-old Muslim boy in a small Belgian town who lives with his single mother and sister, his father having disappeared from their lives. Inspired by his cousin who has left Belgium to become a jihadi fighter, Ahmed grows attracted to and is swiftly radicalised by a local imam. Seemingly overnight, he has become aggressive and self-righteous, hectoring his mother about her drinking and haranguing his sister about her clothes. Intensifying his position, Ahmed refuses to shake hands with his caring and conscientious teacher, Inès, because he now regards women as impure.
Things escalate further when the imam encourages Ahmed to attempt an assault on her. After having done so, he is taken into state youth custody. He soon convinces authorities that he is reformed and wants to apologize in person to her. Is that what he really has in mind? Is that really what he will do?
Winners of the Best Director Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, the brothers Dardenne have made another vital, relevant film, as Godfrey Cheshire of RogerEbert.com calls it, “Another precisely understated masterpiece.”
- Tom McSorley
Preceded by the short film
Rebel
2022. Quebec sees a rise in radical groups responding to an unprecedented influx of illegal migrants entering the country by hiking through the wilderness that borders the United States. Six year old Alex is oblivious to the world changing around him. The mysterious patrols his father leads are just more opportunities to go play hide and seek out in the woods. One morning, though, it all came into focus.
While screening partner Young Ahmed portrays a form of radicalization the world has been taught to condemn, Rebel looks inward and asks an increasingly important question: what does domestic radicalization look like?