DJ Ahmet: Macedonian coming-of-ager hits pleasurable but predictable notes

• Reviewed from the 2025 Sundance Film Festival

The bright-coloured interiors and cool, retro bomber jackets in DJ Ahmet at first look plucked straight out of a John Hughes teen comedy. But when the camera pulls back in the opening scene, we’re met not with an American high school but a Yuruk farming community in North Macedonia. This sharp left turn is the first of many pleasures to come in Georgi M. Unkovski’s charming coming-of-ager.

Surrounded by sprawling mountains, this isolated village is home to the titular teenager Ahmet (Arif Jakup), his stern father (Aksel Mehmet) and little brother, Naim (Agush Agushev). Naim has not uttered a single word since the death of their mother, meanwhile Ahmet daydreams aloud during class, until his dad pulls him out of school and into full-time shepherding.

But fantasy comes to the teen once more in the shape of neighbour Aya (Dora Akan Zlatanova), whose hand is promised to someone else. Following her late one night, Ahmet stumbles into a clandestine rave, his sheep not far behind him. Their bleating bleeds into the pulsating beats of EDM and, almost immediately, the video of Ahmet and his flock bursting through the party goes viral, leaving the boy further torn between duty and rebellion.

Modernity frequently seeps into tradition in Unkovski’s tender feature debut, which smartly dissects the rigidity of this ultra-religious, heavily gendered society without ever cruelly scrutinising the people whose lives have been hermetically sealed by convention. Much like in his impressive work in Goran Stolevski’s dense drama Housekeeping for Beginners (2023), cinematographer Naum Doksevski keeps his camera tight on newcomers Jakup and Agushev, their young, fast-growing limbs cutting through the stale air as they dance to music from low-quality phone speakers. 

As it ticks its familiar yet lovingly tendered boxes, it becomes clear that DJ Ahmet is less about music than it is about rhythm – rhythm as kinship, but also the unspoken dialogue that serves us during unrefined years of youth, when words are as elusive as answers. It is rhythm, too, that threatens to trip up Unkovski’s earnest effort, as the director seesaws between Ahmet’s family life and his burgeoning relationship, never keeping a tight enough grasp on either.

Still, forgiveness is easily extended to this warm, amenable drama, much thanks to the endearing pairing of Jakup and Agushev. The latter bats his big brown eyes to translate the vastness of joy and the tightness of grief with the emotional maturity of a more seasoned actor. It is a luminous, ever-so-watchable performance in a film that is willing to facilitate it.