Fremont 2024 Example

A former translator for the US military, Donya (Anaita Wali Zada) now lives among the Afghan diaspora who call the eponymous Bay Area suburb home and makes a living writing fortune cookie epigrams in Babak Jalali’s (Radio Dreams, Festival 2015) wry, character-driven drama. Faced with hostility from neighbors who regard her as a traitor and plagued by insomnia, Donya struggles in her new homeland but she’s game for exploration, even agreeing to a blind date in far-off Bakersfield. Newcomer Zada is pitch-perfect and receives excellent support from Gregg Turkington as a Jack London-obsessed psychiatrist and Jeremy Allen White (Shameless, The Bear) as a sweet-natured mechanic. Shot in luminous black and white, Fremont presents a delightfully droll slice of one woman’s life.