AFTER KNOCKABOUT COMIC HITS JALLA! JALLA! AND KOPS, LEBANESE-SWEDISH DIRECTOR JOSEF FARES TAKES A SERIOUS TURN WITH THIS AFFECTING DRAMA, WHICH WAS SWEDEN’S 2005 SUBMISSION TO THE ACADEMY AWARDS FOR FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FILM. SET IN 1987, ZOZO FOCUSES ON THE ORPHANED, EPONYMOUS LEBANESE LAD WHO MAKES HIS WAY FROM BEIRUT TO SWEDEN ALONE AND THEN SUFFERS CULTURE SHOCK.
Following the death of his immediate family during the Lebanese civil war, ten-year-old Zozo (Imad Creidi) embarks on a dreamlike journey through the war zone on his way to the airport. Once in Sweden, the boy is welcomed into the arms of his grandfather but soon finds that trying to fit into an alien culture is another sort of battle. This was a very personal project for director Fares, who was himself born in Beirut and emigrated to Sweden as a child. He travelled back to Beirut for the first time in seventeen years to shoot on location, and handles the Lebanese section of Zozo with an amazing sense of mirth and nostalgia. In the title role, young Imad Creidi offer up a fantastic performance that never veers towards sentimentality.