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Neighbour Abdi

director: Douwe Dijkstra

original title: Buurman Abdi

country: Netherlands

year: 2022

running time: 29 min.

synopsis

Abdi spent his childhood in Mogadishu during the civil war. Now he designs and makes furniture in the Netherlands. In the past, he repeatedly witnessed violence and war crimes. After he emigrated, he broke the law himself and ended up in prison. His neighbor happened to be filmmaker Douwe Dijkstra. Together, they decided to reconstruct and take a better look at Abdi's childhood and youth full of traumatizing incidents. Besides not-always-reliable memories, their tools include Dijkstra's special-effects studio with a green screen and many miniature models. The film is both a biography and a stimulating deconstruction of an effort to grasp someone else's past.

“My process is very investigative, working through research and experimentation. But then I also find that in this ‘making of’ approach, it is never about the technical side of things. For me, it’s always about showing the perspective of me as a filmmaker, or the way I relate to the topic or to my protagonist or subject.” — Douwe Dijkstra

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Source: https://businessdoceurope.com/locarno-ff-neighbour-abdi-by-douwe-dijkstra/

biography

Douwe Dijkstra (* 1984) is a Dutch filmmaker and artist. He graduated in design at ArtEZ Art Academy in Zwolle. He creates music videos, short films, and video installations which use animation and VFX. In the past, he founded and headed the 33⅓ Collective multimedia platform which contributed to the creation of several theater projects.

more about film

director:	Douwe Dijkstra
producer:	Richard Valk
script:	Abdiwahab Ali, Douwe Dijkstra

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