The Guerilla Son (2011) [N/A]

Written by:
Zanyar Adami
David Herdies

Directed by:
Zanyar Adami, David Herdies


Release Date:
October 7, 2011

Original Title:
Gerillasonen

Genres:
Documentary

Production Companies:
Momento Film
Sant & Usant

Production Countries:
Sweden

Ratings / Certifications:
 N/A

Runtime: 72

Zanyar Adami looks down at Bagdad from an airplane heading to Sweden. His mother is still down there at the airport. His father isn’t even there to wave goodbye. At the time, Zanyar is only five years old. 23 years later Zanyar, soon to be a father, sits in his kitchen in a suburb of Stockholm. His father, Taher, sits in front of him. Any day now, Zanyar will become a father himself and he knows that he can’t wait anymore. He has to confront his father with the question he has been afraid to ask all his life: How could Taher leave him in the midst of a war and then send him to Sweden all by himself?

Zanyar Adami looks down at Bagdad from an airplane heading to Sweden. His mother is still down there at the airport. His father isnt even there to wave goodbye. At the time, Zanyar is only five years old.23 years later Zanyar, soon to be a father, sits in his kitchen in a suburb of Stockholm. His father, Taher, sits in front of him. Any day now, Zanyar will become a father himself and he knows that he cant wait anymore. He has to confront his father with the question he has been afraid to ask all his life: How could Taher leave him in the midst of a war and then send him to Sweden all by himself?Taher Adami gets up every morning at dawn to drive his taxi in the streets of Stockholm. He does everything he can to forget his past; the torture in prison, the murder of his brother, the shootings during his time in the guerilla. To keep away the memories he seeks refuge in music; he dances tango, plays the piano and sings. But he cant hide his past anymore. His coming grandson awakes memories and his son demands answers.As the birth is approaching Zanyar becomes becomes ever more stressed; he is afraid he will repeat his fathers choice and become an absent parent. He persuades Taher to go on a trip back to the Iraqiuan part of Kurdistan, where they havent been since they fled more than 20 years ago. He tries to get Taher to speak out in every other way he can but as the search for answers through Taher appears to be a dead end, Zanyar is forced to look into himself and face his own past. The encounters between Taher and Zanyar become increasingly intense and emotional. Taher opens up bit by bit, Zanyar starts remembering, and their relationship is put at its most difficult test ever.

Additional information:

The Search Form


Rankings and Honors

The Guerilla Son (2011) on IMDb
Internet Movie Database 7.5/10
Awards Won: 3 nominations

About the Movie Section

Most data and links to images for the Movies section come from TheMovieDB (TMDB).

Additional data for Film Titles come from The Open Movie Database (OMDb).

At least one plug-in comes from IMDb.

Data are -- hey, it's a plural -- subject to the limitations of their sources. (For example, TMDB search results currently max out at 20.) I am limiting myself to free data sources for now. (No, a "free trial" is not free.)

While much of the above data are retrieved directly from outside APIs and other such sources, data from American Film Institute (AFI) and British Film Institute (BFI) were manually entered the old fashioned way into a MySQL database. Re BFI I took the following liberties:

  • I added "runners up" to Top 10 lists, treating them as ties where applicable and numbering them accordingly at the bottom of each list.
  • Regarding those polls wherein "franchise" movies were submitted as one project until BFI's policy changed to regard them separately, I treated them as ties and renumbered the affected lists accordingly (e.g. the Godfather films).

Regarding profile removals and data corrections:

  • If you would like your profile removed from this site, please contact the source of this data directly, TheMovieDB. My assumption is: once it's gone from their site, it should soon be gone from this site.
  • If you would like to correct movie data on this site, please contact the source of this data directly, TheMovieDB. My assumption is: once it's corrected on their site, it should soon be corrected on this site.
  • For additional corrections and profile removals, please e-mail The Open Movie Database (OMDb).

Filtering is applied here to film projects flagged as "adult" by TheMovieDB. Pending "popular demand" I am contemplating a login and profile system with preferences (such as whether to allow adult images to appear) and permissions (such as data entry).

Whereas the overall purpose of this website is to serve as a personal demo/portfolio/workshop of web and data skills, this Movies section is not meant to compete with or substitute for far more definitive movie websites.

Whether or not he still clings to an award which he won in 1986 as a film critic for his college's newspaper, Jeffrey Hartmann is not responsible for the texts of overviews and biographies supplied by external data sources.