Babak Jalali
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Trailer Watch: Babak Jalali’s Fremont
World premiering in Sundance’s NEXT category back in January, the trailer now arrives for director Babak Jalali’s feature debut Fremont. Co-written by Jalali and Italian filmmaker Carolina Cavalli, the Bay Area-set film stars newcomer Anaita Wali Zada, The Bear‘s Jeremy Allen White and On Cinema‘s Gregg Turkington. An official synopsis reads: Each morning Donya (Anaita Wali Zada) 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 and people of her new, unfamiliar surroundings […]
by Natalia Keogan on Aug 2, 2023 -
“The Process Is Similar to the One I Go Through When I Direct”: Editor Babak Jalali on Fremont
In Fremont, the latest film from Babak Jalali, Afghan refugee and former translator for the U.S. government Donya (Anaita Wali Zada) suffers from intense bouts of insomnia. Living in the Bay Area and working at a fortune cookie factory, she channels her loneliness and frustration into an odd outlet. She decides to insert a personalized fortune into a random cookie, curious and unsure of whose hands it will land in. Fremont director and co-writer Babak Jalali discusses the process of editing the film, a role he undertook due to a strong “gut feeling.” See all responses to our annual Sundance […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Feb 6, 2023 -
“Marjaneh Moghimi, the Lead Producer of the Film, Unfortunately Passed Away” | Babak Jalali, Fremont
Every production faces unexpected obstructions that require creative solutions and conceptual rethinking. What was an unforeseen obstacle, crisis, or simply unpredictable event you had to respond to, and how did this event impact or cause you to rethink your film? The way Fremont went into production was influenced by a very sad event. Marjaneh Moghimi, the lead producer of the film, unfortunately passed away a couple of weeks into pre-production, which was also about two weeks before we started shooting. This was a film we had worked on together for a few years. Once we knew about her condition, the […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Feb 4, 2023 -
Sundance 2023: Fremont, Gush
After three full features and one walk-out on my first full IRL day of Sundance 2023, I closed with the day’s best, Babak Jalali’s Fremont. Donya (Anaita Wali Zada, a debuting nonprofessional Afghan refugee playing one) lives in the titular city but commutes to San Francisco to work at a fortune cookie factory. She can’t sleep at nights and, after eight months of unsuccessfully trying to get a psychiatrist appointment, finagles a slot with Dr. Anthony (Gregg Turkington). Their one-on-ones are representative of the film as a whole; even on the semi-populated factory floor, Fremont largely unfolds as a series of […]
by Vadim Rizov on Jan 21, 2023
