DJ Ahmet

Cliches exist for a reason, and the reason is that in most cases they serve a purpose and ring true to an extent. The trouble with them, however, is that they do not necessarily feel authentically earned, but rather conveniently picked up and there is usually someone in the audience to spot and call them out. In the case of Giorgi M Unkovski’s endearing and internationally successful Sundance title DJ Ahmet, the “original sin” is the orientalist, almost safari-like approach to the “Amazing Balkans”, and somebody has to call it out and spoil the party.

DJ Ahmet is set in the backwoods of contemporary North Macedonia and in the milieu of Yörük Turkish people, former nomads who settled in certain mountainous regions and founded villages there to raise cattle and sheep. Ahmet, played by Arif Jakup, is a poor schoolboy who has to deal with the recent death of his mother. care for his younger brother Naim (Agush Agushev), who has not spoken since and put up with his stern father (Aksel Mehmet), who tries to run his family and his “business” in an autocratic way. Ahmet’s strongest tie with the “outer world” is severed when his father takes him out of school and tasks him to take care of the herd and Naim.

One of the ties with modernity that remains is Ahmet’s love for music and technology, which earns him the respect of the local imam and the interest of Aya (Dora Akan Zlatanova) who is visiting for Germany and whom her family wants to marry into a well-to-do family as soon as possible. Things get especially complicated when Ahmet stumbles upon a clandestine rave party in a nearby forest followed by his sheep, which earns him Aya’s attention. Over time, their agreement about playing music as she and her friends practise their dance routine for the upcoming village festival starts to morph into forbidden love and much-needed rebellion against injustice imposed by a conservative society.

DJ Ahmet is Unkovski’s debut feature and it shows. The filmmaker has a lot of ambition to make an accessible movie that flows like a lightweight piece, but also resonates on an emotional level. To a point, he succeeds by setting a fairy tale-like tone, framed by the chorus of village women coming from the ranks of Aya’s friends, which sends most of the plot into a flashback. The filmmaker also tries to balance the humour, fuelled by quirks, with the examination of rigid traditions, the class divide and the youngsters’ striving for freedom.

The acting is good, especially from the younger cast members who can and do rely on their natural charisma. Design-wise, DJ Ahmet also makes an impression through the enhanced colours in Naum Doksevski’s cinematography, although it still feels artificial and a bit touristy. The thing is that the artifice takes over, making the desired authenticity completely fake, designed to please two different types of audience. So, there is a bit of orientalism and exoticism for Western audiences and festival-goers, and some milked laughs and emotions for the local or regional audiences that are growing tired of drab dramas on the festival circuit.

That is somewhat of a trend in North Macedonian cinema since the independence of the country, from Milcho Manchevski to Goran Stolevski, and it sells well abroad, especially at international, more precisely, American film festivals. However, the main reference here is not fiction movies, but a documentary, Honeyland, which bagged many prizes and a double Oscar nomination – in the documentary and foreign language categories. Although both films were set in similar milieu and were both partly dealing with the topic of the collision between the tradition and modernity, the thing is that Honeyland felt authentic even though it was at least partly scripted, while DJ Ahmet tries to achieve the same by replicating and then adjusting the type of protagonist and the environment.

In the end, the formula has worked for a lot of international critics, festival juries and audiences, since the film has collected prizes from Sundance to Sarajevo and will continue to do so. The thinly veiled exoticism paid off, but there will always be those to call DJ Ahmet out for that very thing.

Reviewed on: 23 Aug 2025