Know Your Place
Opens August 23, 2024
Seattle’s issues with gentrification and its impact on our East African community are explored as two teenage boys navigate the city to deliver a crucial and time-sensitive package to a friend. 2022 Seattle International Film Festival Golden Space Needle Award - Best Film.
Know Your Place is a slice-of-life drama set in present-day Seattle. Robel Haile (15, Eritrean-American) and his best friend Fahmi Tadesse (15, Ethiopian-American) embark on a journey to drop off a suitcase with medicine and cash to a friend traveling back to Eritrea because of a family member’s sudden illness. An unexpected turn transmutes Robel’s simple errand into an odyssey across the rapidly gentrifying city, navigating directions to make his delivery on time, along with the challenges of familial responsibility, self-identification, and dislocation amid the ongoing redevelopment and displacement of the only community he’s ever known as home. Zia Mohajerjasbi’s debut feature presents a drama that feels both universal thematically and unmistakably specific to the experiences of Eritrean- and Ethiopian-Americans in our city. With an exemplary cast of first-time actors from South Seattle, Know Your Place poetically presents a community that has turned the camera lens upon itself, collaborating to bring a story of home to life in a way that honors the shared space of our city and the nuance of the individual experiences contained within it.
- Director: Zia Mohajerjasbi
- Principal Cast: Joseph Smith, Natnael Mebrahtu, Selamawit Gebresus
- Country: USA
- Year: 2022
- Running Time: 118 min.
- Producer: Ty Walker, Zia Mohajerjasbi
- Screenplay: Zia Mohajerjasbi
- Cinematographers: Nicholas Wiesnet
- Editors: Marty Martin, Zia Mohajerjasbi
- Music: Richard Skelton
- Website: Official Film Website
- Language: English, Tigrinya