This is a very fine independent film about a young woman working in a fortune cookie factory in California after leaving her homeland, Afghanistan. It is quiet, reserved, and very well-made. The character portrayals are wonderful and it just has that great, quiet indie film spirit.

Very Jarmuschian, heartfelt movie about unlikely connections

Un film noir et blanc sur une jeune femme immigrée qui travaille dans une "fortune cookie factory" et qui envoie une bouteille à la mer...Touchant, très original...A voir

The movie is good, it keep the light mood while discussing the idea of being lonely as a fo reigner abroad...somehow very American:)

I just tired, like many folks of super hero movies, violence, you get it. The a movie comes along like Fremont and this is entertainment for me. Regular people and their stories. Like many movies of the early 60's like Persona it lets us learn about the characters and we see real acting. Thanks to the folks that made Fremont, something for the rest of us.

It is a slow, melancholic film with excellent, understated acting and a superb script. Beautifully shot in B&W with a very satisfying story arc.

The main character is Dunia, who came from Afghanistan to the Californian city of Fremont because of the war. She works at a fortune cookie factory in San Francisco, but she has yet to find her own happiness. In her ordinary boring life, filled with routine between going to work and seeing a psychologist and meeting new Afghan faces, she longs to find true love. But she is not sure if she is suitable for love. Neither the main character nor the script itself say much. The authors present the story of Dunia to us very slowly. But the story could be summed up in a few sentences in 10 minutes. The film was unnecessarily long and there were occasional passages where nothing happened. On the other hand, the viewer has a lot of time to think and therefore can better empathize with the characters. The film is original in its visual aspect. It is shot in 4:3 format and in black and white. It is very minimalistic. No unnecessary scenery or people.

I really loved this movie. Anaita Wali is mesmerizing as the lead, and basically carries the film. It's hard to believe that she's up until now never been in a film, but I can't imagine this will be her last. She's never abandons the overall psychological framework and pacing of the movie, which is methodical, serious, yet with moments of lightness. The direction, camera work, script, and score are all just fantastic. Again, I loved it. A real gem.

Cute little gem of a film! The routine and predictability of one's life gets surprisingly shaken thanks to one's desire to change course and take finally action.

The beginning is rather uneventful, but after a while the fittingly black-and-white "Fremont" starts showing signs of vibrant comedic life, and it's this aspect that is its biggest asset. The scenes with the psychiatrist (a great Gregg Turkington) and at the restaurant can get really funny yet also emerge as touching and relatable, two characteristics that could also be attributed to the finale and the promise it carries. First-timer Anaita Wali Zada is quite good when her character speaks Dari.

I watched this movie yesterday and it was all I could do to stay awake. The movie had little or no point to it. A critic rating of 97% is. joke. They either never watched the movie or they slept thru it. My faith in Rotten Tomatoes for meaningful reviews is shaken

I found the movie boring. Slow paced, uneventful and irrelevant, it was very disappointing.

Quietly amusing. Quirky doctor who's hilarious. Nuanced acting that hits the right notes. There is one hauntingly beautiful song Sung by Janna, the friend.

Refreshing. Quiet. Sad. Funny. Beautiful b and w cinematography. Great performances too.

Life can be so confusing at times that we really don't know where we stand with it, other than having a clear sense that what we're experiencing isn't working and that we desperately need direction to help fix it. But who are we to turn to if we have few friends and no family for meaningful, helpful guidance? Peers? Co-workers? A psychiatrist? Such is the fate of Donya (Anita Wali Zada), an Afghan transplant living in Fremont, CA, a distant suburb of San Francisco and home to a large population of her country's fellow immigrants. Having worked as a translator for the US Army while in Afghanistan, she qualified for a special exit visa program that brought her to safety in America when the US pulled out of the war-torn nation. She now holds what appears to be a reasonably well-paying, decidedly whimsical job as a writer of messages for Chinese fortune cookies, but, beyond that, she doesn't have much of a life. She often questions (ironically speaking) the good "fortune" from which she's benefitted compared to many of her countrymen back home, frequently experiencing difficulty accepting it and consequently suffering from loneliness and severe insomnia. But what's causing these feelings: Guilt? Isolation? An inability to fit in (or even knowing how to go about doing so)? Or is it some of all of the above? Writer-director Babak Jalali's latest wrestles with these issues from the perspectives of both an isolated immigrant and of a lost twenty-something merely trying to find her way in the world. And, to its credit, the film comes up with some truly brilliant insights in these regards. Unfortunately, there aren't enough of them to make this an enlightening, finely crafted character study. Much of it meanders (especially in the second half), looking for direction through a series of inconsequentially mundane events and a failure to more fully flesh out the insights that it otherwise successfully manages to nail. The film is also sprinkled with delightfully quirky comic relief, but, again, there's not enough of it, which is unfortunate given how well it works when it's successfully and deftly employed. The picture's fine performances, intriguing character development and stark but gorgeous black-and-white cinematography bolster the elements that do work. But, regrettably, this is yet another example of a film that could have used another round of script revisions and tighter editing to help bring the overall production up to snuff, a problem that seems to be plaguing a plethora of offerings these days. Enjoy what works with this one, but don't be disappointed if you end up getting the distinct impression that it comes up short.

Deeply moving and surprisingly funny in a warm and touching way. A must see film so close to home yet so far away about life in parts of the world (Afghanistan) we know very little about. This film exposes us to loneliness, love, empathy, and the resiliency of the human spirit. Bravo to the team that brought this story to life!

Just saw this movie at the Vine Theater. It is an amazing story with so much detail into a young girl's life after leaving her home country. Such respect to all who made this happen and what immigrants go through…!!!

Touching and funny story about a young woman settling into her new life in the Bay Area.

Deeply powerful and moving. You feel the main character and left to question what it means to be human, to suffer, and survive the suffering to want more. It is beautifully written, produced, and acted. "Donya" will never leave me.

I liked it A LOT. Glad it was in black and white. I happen to live in Fremont, CA, and many of my neighbors are Afghans, including a man who was a translator for the US Army. The film's sparseness and slow movement said a lot about what it must be like to be forced to leave everything behind. Often, I find myself in film audiences where I'm the only one laughing. That happened in this one. Don't know if the filmmakers intended it, but I detected a nod to Bagdad Cafe. Anyone else? (And yes, the film's title is spelled that way.)