Fremont

Plot Summary

• Donya (Anaita Wali Zada) is an Afghan refugee living in Fremont, California after working as a translator for the United States Army in Afghanistan. She is struggling with insomnia and loneliness as she has only been in the United States for eight months.She spends her day in nearby San Francisco working at a fortune cookie factory run by a married couple, the kind and outgoing Ricky (Eddie Tang) and his wife, Lin (Jennifer McKay), who appears to dislike Donya. Donya and her co-worker, Joanna (Hilda Schmelling), package the cookies while their older colleague, Fan (Avis See-tho), writes the fortunes.The only people Donya interacts with are her neighbors, colleagues, and Aziz (Fazil Seddiqui), who is the owner of a local Middle Eastern restaurant. One of her neighbors, Salim (Siddique Ahmed), is also an Afghan refugee. Salim offers Donya coffee, which she refuses for the reason that it would be even harder for her to sleep if she drank it.Salim, knowing that Donya has been on the wait-list for a therapy session, gives her his therapist appointment card so she can go instead. She is disappointed when the therapist, Dr. Anthony (Gregg Turkington), explains that he is unable to give her a prescription for sleeping pills until she attends several therapy sessions.At work, Donya is tasked with writing the fortunes for the cookies after Fan unexpectedly dies. Though initially excited by the new opportunity, Donya soon starts to struggle to come up with fortunes due to her unhappiness. As her sessions with Dr. Anthony continue, it is revealed that her insomnia is largely due to her survivor's guilt over leaving her family and others behind in Kabul. She explains that she was one of three translators in her base and was the only one who made it out of Afghanistan. One translator was killed while waiting for his visa to get approved and the other was still waiting for his paperwork to be processed when Donya left. Dr. Anthony suggests that her parents must have been proud of her for being the only female translator, but Donya explains that she was instead considered a traitor by people in their neighborhood and her family started receiving death threats.Aziz can see how lonely Donya is and encourages her to start dating. She initially laughs it off, but later admits to Salim that she longs for a romantic partner, but feels it would be unfair if she met someone who made her happy since many are still suffering in her hometown. Salim agrees with Aziz and tells her to stop holding herself back because of something she cannot control.Encouraged by their conversation, Donya impulsively writes down her phone number on one of the fortunes and puts it in a cookie. She is nearly fired after Lin discovers what Donya did, but Ricky refuses to fire her. To her surprise, Donya believes she receives a date invitation via a text from someone in Bakersfield to come to a pottery shop. Looking forward to meeting a man, she borrows a friend's car to drive to Bakersfield. Though initially hesitant, she grows increasingly excited by the idea that someone responded to her note after speaking to Joanna. She is sent an address and instructed to ask for "the Deer" when she arrives.On her way to Bakersfield, Donya stops at an auto repair shop to check the oil level where she meets Daniel (Jeremy Allen White), the kind mechanic who owns the shop. He gives her a free can of oil and helps her pour it in. Though they are clearly attracted to each other, Donya reluctantly rejects his attempts to get lunch since she is set on meeting someone. Before leaving, she tries to pay for the cup of coffee he gave her, but Daniel doesn't accept her money and tells her that if she ever comes back, the coffee will still be free of charge for her.Once Donya arrives at the pottery shop in Bakersfield, she is surprised when the employee simply hands her a statue of a deer. Since her boss' wife, Lin, had been reluctant to pay a delivery fee, she ends up driving the distance to Bakersfield to accept a gift from her boss.On her way back to Fremont, Donya returns to Daniel's auto shop. She gives him the deer statue, which he happily accepts, and she agrees to have another cup of coffee with him and spends time getting to know him.

Storyline

• Beautiful and troubled 20-something Donya, an Afghan translator who used to work with the U.S. government, has trouble sleeping. She lives by herself in Fremont, California, in a building with other Afghan immigrants and often dines alone at a local restaurant watching soap operas. Her routine changes when she's promoted to writing the fortunes at her job at a fortune cookie factory in the city. As her fortunes are read by strangers throughout the Bay, Donya's smoldering longing drives her to send a message out to the world, unsure where it will lead. — themoviedb Donya works for a fortune cookie factory in San Francisco. Formerly a translator for the U.S. military in Afghanistan, she struggles to settle into her new life. In a moment of sudden revelation, she decides to send out a special message in a cookie. — sxsw Donya, a former Afghan translator for the U.S. government, lives alone in Fremont, California. When she's promoted to writing the fortunes at her job at a fortune cookie factory in the city, Donya's loneliness and longing drive her to send a message out in a cookie, unsure where it may lead. Tenderly sculpted and lyrically shot in black-and-white, Babak Jalali's FREMONT is a wry, deadpan vision of the universal longing for home.