Sundance 2025 Review: DJ AHMET, In North Macedonia, Kids Just Want to Dance
Arif Jakup and Dora Akan Zlatanova star in a delightful culture clash romance.

Don't underestimate DJ Ahmet, the feature debut from writer and director Georgi M. Unkovski. On its surface a teen romance, the movie updates familiar formulas in unexpected ways.
Teenager Ahmet (Arif Jakup) is pulled out of his school in rural North Macedonia to help run his widowed father's (Selpin Kerim) farm. That means herding sheep, harvesting tobacco, and caring for his younger brother Naim (Agush Agushev), left speechless after the sudden death of their mother.
It's a hard life made even harsher when Ahmet loses track of one of the sheep while visiting a secret, all-night rave deep in the forest. As punishment, his father banishes him from the farmhouse. Ahmet sleeps outside, awoken every dawn by a bucket of water thrown on him by his angry dad.
Also at the rave: Aya (Dora Akan Zlatanova), a neighbor who had been living with relatives in Germany. She's facing an unwanted arranged marriage to Hakan (Metin Ibrahim), a pact she tries to sabotage by flouting her father's strict rules.
That means secretly rehearsing a hip-hop dance routine with her friends for an upcoming performance at a folk festival. Ahmet finds out about the scheme while searching for a Wi-Fi connection near Aya's home. He offers his sound system—speakers attached to a tractor—to help them.
Rumors fly fast in a small village. Gossip escalates the innocent rehearsals into a scandalous romance, although to be honest the world does come to a halt for Ahmet whenever he sees Aya. The closer they get, the more they realize how little control they have over their lives.
You could look at DJ Ahmet as a shrewd updating of something like Footloose, where kids have to show their parents how mean and outdated their rules are. Or think of David Copperfield, as Ahmet has everything he loves in life taken away from him.
But Unkovski is more interested in the story's conflicts: culture clashes between traditionally religious, conservative parents and their rebellious offspring; between Muslim and secular communities; between the rich and the poor. (Aya's dad treats Ahmet's dad with contempt because he keeps sheep.)
DJ Ahmet also watches with fascination a war between the past and the present. A muezzin (Atila Klince) struggles to master the technology required to stream a playlist of daily prayers over the village's loudspeakers. Instead of going to a doctor, Ahmet's father brings Naim to a "healer" (Nadzi Shaban) to restore his speech. But he's the same kind of snake-oil grifter who's preyed on the poor for centuries.
Jakup, who's in almost every scene as Ahmet, gives a solid if occasionally stiff performance. He can be charming, especially with his younger brother, but his character is too withdrawn and hesitant for much of the movie.
Zlatanova is a knock-out as Aya, whose exposure to the outside world has given her a confidence unimaginable to the family and villagers around her. She takes charge of her relationship with Ahmet. She not only inspires him to stand up for himself, but shows the entire village what it's like to feel free.
Unkovski is a smart director who doesn't try too much. His film is both wildly exotic and completely down to earth, tied to a specific culture yet dealing with universally recognizable problems. It's an auspicious debut.
Screening in the 2025 Sundance World Dramatic Competition. Photos courtesy of Sundance Institute. Visit the official Sundance site for more information.
DJ Ahmet
Director(s)
- Georgi M. Unkovski
Cast
- Aksel Mehmet
- Selpin Kerim
- Atila Klince