Timothée built his identity around his absent father. What happens when they meet?

Warning: this film features flashing light that could be unsuitable for photosensitive viewers.

A film that’s at once global and deeply personal, Five Years After the War features a young man named Timothée Dray sharing how he grew up trying to make sense of a complicated identity. The product of a ‘hook-up’ between an Iraqi refugee and a Jewish Parisian, Dray had difficulty placing himself within the modern world. Further complicating matters, he had no contact with his father, which meant he envisioned him as a cross between Darth Vader, Osama bin Laden and a brave exiled revolutionary. As Dray narrates his life story, a filmmaking team led by his cousin, the French director Samuel Albaric, borrows from his cultural references to animate the piece with a wide range of colourful styles. The lone exception is a touching live-action sequence in which Dray at long last meets, and demystifies, his father Jaffar Abdalla. With striking honesty and a rich visual verve, Albaric combines the mundane and extraordinary in Dray’s journey to weave an epic coming-of-age tale.