11/03/2025 - Brwa Vahabpour offers a creative take on immigrant and asylum narratives through the lens of a young Norwegian man who receives a surprise visit from his Kurdish uncle

Imagine being woken up in the middle of the night by a ringing doorbell, and in confidently strolls a man you don’t recognise, who claims to be your uncle. He makes himself at home in the kitchen, brusquely wondering aloud why you haven’t served him tea yet – because that’s not a very warm family welcome. And the other burning mystery? You live in Oslo… And he’s apparently come all the way from the Iranian part of Kurdistan. Writer-director Brwa Vahabpour brings us into the world of his debut feature, My Uncle Jens [+see also:
interview: Brwa Vahabpour, Peiman Aziz…
film profile], with this brilliant tone-setting opening scene, which offers us an initial taste of this SXSW world premiere in the Narrative Feature Competition.

From the start, we’re set up for the dynamic between Akam (Peiman Azizpour), a young Norwegian primary-school teacher of Kurdish descent, and his nosy, critical uncle Khdr (Hamza Agoshi). But he says Akam’s confused flatmates Pernille (Theresa Frostad Eggesbø) and Stian (Magnus Lysbakken) can call him “Jens” because, hey, that's easier. With these characters, Vahabpour quickly strikes a quietly humorous tone while still maintaining the film as a drama with comedic elements, rather than a full-on dramedy. Many scenes are structured as inherently humorous (furthered by select instances of smash cut-style editing by Bryjar Lien Aune and Cǎtǎlin Cristuţiu), although the film doesn't always play as laugh-out-loud funny.

To try to make sense of Khdr’s appearance, he begins meeting – and finding a romantic connection – with Elina (Sarah Francesca Brænne), a woman who works at the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration (UDI), under the pretext of needing her help in writing a short story. At a few moments, the film feels overly pro-state authority in a way that seems out of character for both Akam and Khdr, just as both are avoiding the police while seeking to not criticise them. Nonetheless, we’re also granted several playfully ironic moments that play off of these more situationally awkward elements.

The film’s emotional core is driven by the performance of Agoshi, who creates a delightful balance between cheekily earnest and obnoxiously demanding. Case in point: in one chuckle-worthy scene, he effectively cons a man into selling a used DVD player for 350 NOK (roughly €30) cheaper by nodding his wide-eyed way through the interaction in the presence of an embarrassed Akam. Viewers from all parts of the world will likely be able to recognise this half-condescending older aunt, uncle or relative whom just can’t avoid people-pleasing – it’s a highly relatable guilt trip.

The filmmaker sprinkles in conversations about Akam’s father being a member of the Peshmerga (Kurdistan’s guerrilla security forces), getting at larger conversations about persecution and resistance, but this narrative falls by the wayside. Likewise, he leaves some threads quite thin, such as the story of Marko (Marko Lazic), Akam’s second-generation immigrant student who struggles with school. Where My Uncle Jens succeeds is in combining thriller elements (including a tense, ticking-based score by KASTEL) while disguising it all under the accessible umbrella of a light culture-clash film. However, Vahabpour avoids the pitfalls of narratives that cast immigrants as simply struggling outsiders in a highly structured Western society – or milking overused comments about “smelly” meals at lunch.

My Uncle Jens is a Norwegian-Romanian co-production by Oslo-based True Content Production AS and Bucharest-based Tangaj Production. Intramovies is in charge of the film’s international sales.