Danish-Afghan movie Flee makes history with three Oscar Award nominations

A Danish-Afghan animated documentary film Flee was nominated for three Oscar Awards - otherwise known as Academy Awards - on Tuesday.

The film has made history as the first to land three nominations for the Best Documentary Feature, International Feature, and Animated Feature categories of the awards in one year. 

Flee, directed by Jonas Poher Rasmussen, tells the real story of a man named Amin - a pseudonym - who flees from Afghanistan to Denmark. There he falls in love with another man, which compels him to confront his past for the first time, before getting married and beginning a new life.

The award winning film - starring actors Daniel Karimyar, Fardin Mijdzadeh and Milad Eskandari - will compete against nominees Ascension, Attica, Summer of Soul and Writing with Fire for the Best Documentary Feature award.

For the Best International Feature award, it will compete against nominees Drive My Car, The Hand of God, Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom, and The Worst Person in the World.

Finally, for the Best Animated Feature award, Flee will compete against nominees Encanto, Luca, The Mitchells vs. The Machines, and Raya and the Last Dragon.

The Rasmussen-stamped piece of work debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in January last year and won the Grand Jury Prize in the World Cinema Documentary category.

The film was also nominated for four Annie Awards and two BAFTA Awards in the Best Documentary and Best Animated Feature Film categories.

The 94th Academy Awards will be held on 27 March in the Dolby Theatre at the Hollywood & Highland Centre in Los Angeles, America.

Afghanistan has been consumed by political and economical crises since the Taliban returned to power last August, after US and other foreign forces withdrew from the country to end two decades of war. 

Chaotic scenes during the departure saw Islamic State group militants target crowds outside Kabul airports while other Afghans were thrown to their deaths as they clung to planes flying out of the country.

The takeover saw a wave of Afghans fleeing their country in fear of the hardline Islamist group, as the UK Home Office claimed to have evacuated more than 15,000 people from Afghanistan in the fortnight following the Taliban's resumption of power.