The story takes place in a very small and rural town on the mountains of North Macedonia. Seventeen-ish-year-old Ahmet (Arif Jakup) is a peasant living with his controlling father and his younger and mute brother Naim (Agush Agushev), roughly half his age. It is not clear why Naim won’t utter a word. He can hear perfectly well, as we find out in the films earliest sequences. He dances to Shakira, but Ahmet isn’t too impressed: he is concerned that in a couple of weeks his child sibling would be belly dancing on the streets. Nam’s mental faculties too are intact. Perhaps his silence is related to the premature passing of their mother. Or maybe that’s a gesture a rebellion against tradition and the patriarchy. Whatever the answer and despite the lack of verbal communication, Naim is one of the film’s most charismatic and eloquent characters.
Ahmet is a music lover. Unbeknownst to his father, he plays a couple of electronic tunes on the small speakers that he inherited from his mother. His passion, however, gets on the way of his herding duties. He loses one of the 20 sheep that he’s meant to look after, thus infuriating his father. As a punishment, he’s forced to sleep rough. His disgruntled father wakes him in the moening with a bucket of cold water on his face. Ahmet’s basic technology skills become a valuable asset to his computer-illiterate community. The local imam asks him to play the morning prayer on the speakers of the minaret, but instead it is he Windows stinger (the sound you hear when you turn your Microsoft computer on) that gets broadcast to the perplexed residents. They are left wondering what type of prayer these bizarre sounds may introduce.
Our quiet and yet resolute protagonist becomes infatuated with the beautiful Aya (Dora Akan Zlatanova), a traditional dancer more interest in TikTok routines. The two meet on a mountain rave, which hilariously comes to an end after Ahmet’s sheep gatecrash into the celebration. Aya’s hand has been promised to a man she barely knows and has no desire to marry. So she comes up wih a cunning plan in order to dissuade her authoritarian father, but she needs some crucial help from our kind lead. A very risky performance is in the making.
The missing sheep eventually surfaces, yet it has been defaced in a very peculiar way. Ahmet attempts to sell it to no avail: peasants aren’t impressed with the animal’s unorthodox looks. This is a society that does not welcome outsiders. There is no room for a black sleep. Or a sheep of any other colour except white. The missing animal eventually reconnects with the others, in a highly symbolic, beautiful and indeed hilarious scene about the power or tolerance and reconnection.
Having originally premiered at Sundance, DJ Ahmet also showed in the Official Competition of the 31st Sarajevo Film Festival (where this piece was originally written). This little miracle from the Balkans is is a very strong contender for the event’s top prize, the Heart of Sarajevo. It is also a comedy with the potential to win hearts well beyond the Balkans, securing distribution deals in geographies less used to films from the Balkans (particularly a small country as obscure as North Macedonia). The UK premiere takes place at the 69th BFI London Film Festival. Also showing at the Tallinn Black Nights. In cinemas on Friday, March 27th.
