DOC - Golf alpha yankee
Documentary Feature
Title: Golf Alpha Yankee
Project Status: Rough Cut
Logline
Five queer refugees from Iran, living in asylum in Turkey, agree to work with a gay filmmaker intent on exposing anti-LGBTQ+ persecution. But when he tries to sensationalize their story, they push back. What emerges is a collaboration that reveals the intimacy, conflict, and irreverent humor of life in exile.
Synopsis
Alef, a gay refugee from Iran, sets the tone from the outset:
“This film has to show the real life of gay refugees in Turkey. You ask what we do? We cook, we eat, and we talk about cock.”
He has spent years in Turkey under temporary asylum, waiting in limbo to learn whether the UN will send him to a new country or back to the one he fled. When Rick, a gay filmmaker, arrives seeking to document the Iranian government’s state violence against homosexuals, Alef opens his door, but with one condition: “We will not be portrayed as victims.”
As trust builds, verité scenes unfold with warmth, absurdity, and intimacy: sex tips, dating adventures, late-night conversations about regret, the loss of innocence… What began as a naive rescue mission evolves into a collaboration that becomes the story itself.
Additional Project Info
I set out to make a film about persecution. But what I found was something far more complicated. And more beautiful.
In 2012, I read about executions of gay men in Iran and imagined a film that would expose injustice. When I couldn’t get a visa, I learned that some queer Iranians fled to Turkey to seek asylum. I moved there with no connections at all, hoping to dig up a powerful story. What I didn’t expect was to be told: Not that story. Not like that.
Five gay asylum seekers agreed to participate on the condition that I tell their story, their way. They didn’t want to be saved, or framed as victims, as many of their peers sought. They wanted to be seen for who they were: funny, flirtatious, angry, kind, contradictory, and brave. Like most of us, flawed.
Through months of shared meals, heated arguments, dating profile rewrites, and bursts of obscene laughter, they taught me to let go of the film I thought I was making. Instead, we made this one together. Something intimate, collaborative, and defiant. They made me hopefully a better listener, and definitely a better filmmaker.
This isn’t a call to action. It’s an invitation to look closer, not with pity, but with recognition.
The impact, if there is one, won’t come from outrage. More simply, it’s human connection.
Director’s Statement:
Golf Alpha Yankee opens with an admission:
I set out to make this film... to save the gays in Iran.
As a queer filmmaker from the United States, I thought I knew what needed to be said. But when I got to Turkey and met Alef, Pasha, Zerin, and the others, they had their own plans—for me, for the camera, for the entire premise of the project.
What started as a naive mission to expose injustice quickly turned into a collaboration that captured something harder to define: daily life in limbo, full of sex jokes, regret, raucous parties, heavy sadness, and an endless supply of vodka and cigarettes.
The result is messy, emotional, and revealing. It’s not about saving anyone. It’s about what happens when people tell their own stories, and someone like me finally shuts up and listens.
Team
Director: Rick Flynn. Producers: Chelsea Moore (USA), Rick Flynn (USA, Germany), Glib Lukianets (Poland), Spyros Patsouras (Greece). Editor: Mark Juergens. Animation Director: Alexandra Fyock. Composer: Timmi Oyen. Cultural Consultant: Samira Moyheddin.
Seeking
Finishing funds and distribution partners whose slates are aligned with our storytelling style: exploring a timely, serious topic through humorous verité and animation. Resources will be used for completing animation, sound design, and outreach. Target markets: U.S., Western Europe, the Middle East, Korea, and Japan.
Rights Available
All rights available
Website
Deck:
https://www.golfalphayankee.com/deck
Contact
info@productionswithsalt.com
US and WhatsApp: +1 585 228 6693
DE: +49 162 1588924