Ultimate Citizens: A Journey to Belonging

by Amanda Lou for Winter Film Festival
See the documentary film Ultimate Citizens on February 22 @7:15PM at LOOK Cinemas (657 West 57th Street) as part of New York City’s 13th Annual Winter Film Festival. Tickets now on sale!

Ultimate Citizens tells the story of Jamshid Khajavi, an Iranian American immigrant, public school counselor, and ultra-athlete, who helps the children of immigrants and refugees in Seattle to find belonging on their way to compete in the world’s largest Ultimate Frisbee Tournament. Jamshid does his best work on the playing field with his students. With a Frisbee in hand, he shows that love wins – one kid, chicken, ultra-endurance race, and friend at a time.

When Director Francine Strickwerda first learned about Jamshid, she had just finished making an ITVS-supported documentary for PBS, Oil & Water about two boys attempting to take on the oil industry following an environmental disaster in the Ecuadorian Amazon. She decided to look for her next film subject close to her home in Seattle.

She learned about Jamshid in a local newspaper article. Jamshid is a “Mr. Rogers” for our time, a school counselor and ultra-athlete who uses the sport of Ultimate Frisbee to help children heal and find belonging in a Seattle public school. Ultimate Citizens follows Jamshid and an underdog team of kids who are mostly from immigrant and refugee families as they prepare to compete in the world’s largest all-gender youth Ultimate Frisbee tournament.

Finding the story is always the biggest challenge. There are a lot of different ways she could have approached the story. She saw Jamshid do beautiful work with all the students who came from all different backgrounds, at Hazel Wolf K-8, the Seattle public school where they filmed. But she was especially interested in Jamshid’s work with the students from immigrant families. In a prosperous city like Seattle known for its high-tech companies and $7 coffee drinks, there are many families struggling to get by, with parents working multiple minimum wage jobs just to keep food on the table. If you are an immigrant or refugee, it is that much harder.

Jamshid, an immigrant from Iran, was so very skilled at relating to these kids and helping them succeed in school. The film also features two of his fifth-grade students and star Ultimate players, Nyahoak, whose South Sudanese parents came to the U.S. as refugees, and Pio, whose Samoan parents came for a better life but struggled through homelessness with their children. After they started filming, there was the dramatic rise in anti-immigrant policies and rhetoric coming from the U.S. government, and Francine saw that the film could be used to start meaningful conversations about immigrants, welcoming, belonging and what kind of country we want to be. Ultimate Citizens is a vision of a more welcoming America.

In the film, Jamshid is passionate about teaching students to play Ultimate Frisbee, but it’s just one of the many ways he teaches empathy, conflict resolution, and resilience. And especially a sense of belonging. The audience will often hear Jamshid saying to people, “I’m so glad you’re here,” and he truly means it. In a divided country that’s in conflict around so many different things, Jamshid models how to make a community that works for everyone, and he shows how much better that is for all of us. Francine believes that “Ultimate Citizens” is a story that meets the moment we’re all in.

When asked what she learned the most from her journey making this documentary, Francine said, “Documentary filmmaking is always a marathon, never a sprint. Be patient. Ask for help. Take breaks to take care of yourself. And have fun. While working on this film I took up open water swimming in Puget Sound. It’s freezing cold and I love it, which came as a complete surprise to me. Jamshid suggested it – he also happens to be an open water ultra-endurance swimmer, and I’m so glad I decided to give it a try.”