Official Trailer for Babak Jalali’s ‘Fremont’ Starring Anaita Wali Zada
by Alex Billington
August 2, 2023
Source: YouTube
“It’s okay to feel lonely sometimes…” Music Box Films has revealed an official trailer for an indie film titled Fremont, a black & white dry comedy from writer / director Babak Jalali, co-written by Carolina Cavalli (who also directed this year’s Amanda). This first premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, and has stopped by lots of other festivals including SXSW, Karlovy Vary, IFFBoston, Sun Valley, Seattle, and more. Donya, a lonely Afghan immigrant in the US who works at a fortune cookie factory, is promoted to writing the fortunes inside each cookie. Seeking connection, she decides to send a message out to the world through a cookie, unsure where it will lead. “Tenderly sculpted and lyrically shot in black-and-white, Babak Jalali’s Fremont is a wry, deadpan vision of the universal longing for home.” Anaita Wali Zada stars as Donya, and the cast features Jeremy Allen White, Gregg Turkington, Hilda Schmelling, and Avis See-tho. This has been picking up great reviews from critics at fests, and it’ll be playing in select theaters next month.
Here’s the first official trailer (+ poster) for Babak Jalali’s Fremont, from Music Box’s YouTube:
Each morning Donya leaves her tight-knit community of Afghan immigrants in Fremont, California. She crosses the Bay to work at a family-run fortune cookie factory in San Francisco. Donya drifts through her routine, struggling to connect with the culture & people of her new world while processing complicated feelings about her past as a translator for the U.S. in Afghanistan. Unable to sleep, she finagles her way into a regular slot with a therapist (Gregg Turkington) who grasps for prospective role models. When an unexpected promotion at work thrusts Donya into the position to write her own story, she communicates her loneliness & longing through a concise medium: the fortunes inside each cookie. Donya’s koans travel, making a humble social impact and expanding her beyond Fremont and her own turbulent past, including an encounter at a diner with a quiet auto mechanic who could also stand to see his own world expanded.
Fremont is directed by the indie editor / producer / filmmaker Babak Jalali, director of the films Frontier Blues, Radio Dreams, and Land previously, plus a few other shorts previously. The screenplay is written by Carolina Cavalli (Amanda) & Babak Jalali. Produced by Marjaneh Moghimi, Sudnya Shroff, Rachael Fung, George Rush, Chris Martin, and Laura Wagner. This initially premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, and it later won the Grand Jury Prize in comp at the Independent Film Festival of Boston (IFFBoston). Music Box Films will debut Jalali’s Fremont in select US theaters (SF, NY, LA at first) starting on August 25th, 2023 (playing further into September). For more info, visit their official site. Interested?
