SILVER

In this debut feature by writer-director Zia Mohajerjasbi, 15-year-old Robel (Joseph Smith) embarks on an errand to deliver a huge, heavy suitcase across town, destined for a sick family member in his parents' homeland of Eritrea. He enlists the help of his best friend Fahmi (Natnael Mebrahtu), but an unexpected turn transmutes his simple task into an odyssey across the rapidly gentrifying city of Seattle. Robel must navigate the city to make the delivery on time, while also confronting the challenges of familial responsibility, self-identification and dislocation amid the ongoing redevelopment and economic displacement of the only community he's ever known as home. Mohajerjasbi presents a drama that feels both thematically universal and unmistakably specific to the experiences of Eritrean and Ethiopian Americans in Seattle and other diaspora communities across the U.S. DIR/SCR/PROD Zia Mohajerjasbi; PROD Ty Walker. U.S., 2022, color, 118 min. In English and Tigrinya with English subtitles. NOT RATED (treat as RATED R)

No AFI Member passes accepted.