About the Documentary

The Story

Five quixotic gay asylum seekers from Iran find companionship and debauchery in the monotonous limbo of small-town Turkey, waiting years for a United Nations decision that will shape the rest of their lives. 

The young  refugees, whose faces were never captured on-camera, share personal stories with sometimes harrowing details about why they left their homeland, while granting even deeper access to their daily lives. They slowly allow the camera into their most intimate moments together. Parties, tears, sex, fights, and the kinds of humor you’d only let loose among the closest of friends, reveal each young man on a journey to becoming himself.

The Style

For their own protection, the subjects’ faces were never recorded on film. A variety of creative camera angles allow body language to be a primary visual language for expression. In addition, original animations are used as an additional camera, providing imagined details to fill the space, and eyes with which to empathize. Verité footage, sometimes filmed by the subjects themselves, augments our trust in emotionally naked moments. The filmmaking process is a part of the narrative. Our subjects double as behind-the-scenes players on the set of their own lives, giving the viewer the opportunity to come along for a ride of unfiltered experience of the human condition.