Neighbour Abdi
2022 · 29m · Netherlands
Directed by Douwe Dijkstra
Genres: documentary, experimental
Tones: contemplative, tender, whimsical
Somali-born furniture designer Abdi reenacts his life — marked by civil war in Mogadishu and later criminality — with the help of his Dutch neighbour and filmmaker Douwe Dijkstra, using playful green-screen reconstructions in a special effects studio.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Somali ex-criminal reenacts his life with his Dutch neighbor in a green-screen studio, foregrounding the artifice. Locarno premiere; the meta-documentary thing is overused but here the relationship between the two men is the actual point.
Dijkstra and Abdiwahab Ali turning the green-screen studio into the film's confession booth — twenty-eight minutes, Locarno premiere, and the meta-documentary tradition of Joshua Oppenheimer and Sarah Polley extended into genuine friendship. One of the most formally exciting hybrid documentaries of its year.
Foregrounding the green-screen studio setup itself, switching between dramatic reenactments and the apparatus, turns the filmmaking process into the empathy mechanism — Locarno premiere, 28-minute runtime, 36K views. That's the meta-doc move done with actual purpose, not just self-awareness.
Reviews
Dijkstra continues to prove he is one of the best documentary makers in Europe today. Neighbour Abdi stands out as the pinnacle of his work, seamlessly blending his filmmaking charm with the profound impact of Abdi's story.
The most interesting layer in this story is a meta-one, about the use of technology and the modelling work to tell a story in a sincere and compelling way, also when it stretches over continents of space and decades of time.
Festivals
- Locarno Film Festival 2022, Pardino d'argento
- Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival 2023, Special Effects Award by Adobe
- Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival 2022
- European Film Awards 2022