Golf Alpha Yankee

Directed & Produced by: Rick Flynn

Stage:
- Post Production
Location:
- New York, United States
Updated: February 4, 2026
Project Type:
- Feature
Project Style:
- Animated,
- Observational
Theme Subject:

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.

Clips

3-minute collection of scene excerpts from opening of the film, with animations in draft form.

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

...

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.”

Over the ensuing months, Alef introduces Rick to other gay refugees from Iran, including Pasha, a former cleric and 30-year-old virgin, and Zerin, a soft-spoken artist who says he was sentenced to lashings after confessing to having oral sex with another man. As trust builds, verité scenes unfold with warmth, absurdity, and intimacy: sex tips, dating adventures, late-night conversations about regret, the loss of innocence...

Tensions rise when Rick urges Alef to confirm the Western narrative of execution in Iran. Alef pushes back, and their argument escalates into a shouting match that nearly derails the film. As Rick’s assumptions collapse, something more truthful takes shape. What began as a naive rescue mission evolves into a collaboration that becomes the story itself.

Alef walks out of an airport in his new home, the United States, already imagining the life he might build. Then he turns to the camera and leaves a farewell only he could give: a middle finger, and a smile.

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Background

Golf Alpha Yankee’s story is necessary now more than ever. Its themes include LGBTQ persecution, refugee and immigration issues, sex, and loneliness. Yet, it uses humor to open an entertaining door to understanding, with the ultimate goal of breaking down barriers of otherness.

We are currently looking for partnership with an animation studio and/or finishing funds to complete animation production. The summary: we have a rough cut that has been audience-tested, and

...

We are currently looking for partnership with an animation studio and/or finishing funds to complete animation production. The summary: we have a rough cut that has been audience-tested, and the film is ready for lock, but for the animations, which are already in a draft stage. Our greatest need now: resources to complete the animation.

This could take the form of a co-production, funding sources, and/or an executive producer capable of mentoring a first-time director through the finishing process and into the festival circuit. With the innovative take on the topic (wildly humorous), and unique use of animation, the film is poised to make some waves.

Background:

Golf Alpha Yankee began with a development and production grant from the German Media Fund and institutional support from Freie Universität Berlin. A successful crowdfunding campaign allowed us to break ground on post-production. We then received support from the Center for Independent Documentary, and additional funding from The Gene and John Foundation through The Stonewall Community Foundation in New York.

We were selected for the Filmshop Distribution Studio, through which director Rick Flynn participated in impact seminars and individual coaching and enthusiastic support from the trail-blazing self-distribution team Zaya and Mauriczio Benazzo. More recently, we teamed up with producer Glib Lukianets (Flowers of Ukraine) in an attempt to open up European doors for finishing funds. We are in the process of finalizing a partnership with LeLe Crossmedia Production in Poland to complete the animation. Gogol Films, a Dutch-Polish documentary non-profit, has pledged an in-kind contribution for services and facilities sound design, mix, and color grading. We’ve received in-kind support from the film’s composer, Timmy Oyen, and a number of dedicated team members, as well as test screening opportunities from New York’s DCTV.

The film was a semi-finalist for both the AmDocs Documentary Film Fund and the Ji.Hlava IDFF Film Fund Pitch Competition in the Czech Republic.

We are working closely with Cultural Advisor Samira Moyheddin, a Canada-based queer Iranian refugee journalist, who is helping us identify and secure global outreach partners and Canadian distribution opportunities. We have also received endorsement support from the United Nations Association of Greater Boston, Research Institute Without Walls, and Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly.

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Style & Tone

Golf Alpha Yankee opens with an admission:

Golf alpha Yankee opens with a blunt 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

...

Golf Alpha Yankee opens with an admission:

Golf alpha Yankee opens with a blunt admission: I set out to make this film... to save the gays in Iran.

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.

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Team

Rick Flynn

Director & Producer

Team

Rick Flynn

Director & Producer

Rick is a documentary filmmaker and editor based in both New York and Berlin. He is also a partner at Rich Media Play, a video production company that specializes in documentary storytelling for brands. His latest documentary, Golf Alpha Yankee, currently in the final stages of post-production, follows five quixotic gay asylum seekers from Iran as they find companionship and debauchery in the monotonous limbo of small-town Turkey. Rick has a background in visual and media anthropology (MA, Freie Universität, Berlin), music (BM, New York University) and expedition leadership (NOLS).

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Chelsea Moore

Producer

Team

Chelsea Moore

Producer

Chelsea Moore (they/she) is a filmmaker and producer who strives to cultivate healing work and relationships with creators, participants, and audiences. Their productions have screened at over 50 festivals internationally, including Tribeca, New Orleans Film Festival, Outfest, NewFest, Inside Out, and BFI Flare. Chelsea is a Sundance-supported artist with the 2023-2024 Producers Intensive.

Chelsea’s latest, the animated short documentary Inner Wound Real, was a 2021 Black Public Media Fellow & Grantee, premiered at Tribeca 2022, and was the opening film of AfroPop Digital Shorts 2023. In addition to their producing work, Chelsea is a Documentary Producers Alliance member, chair of the DPA Union Research sub-committee, and festival programmer.

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Glib Lukianets

Co-Producer

Team

Glib Lukianets

Co-Producer

Glib Lukianets is Ukrainian-Polish film producer, the founder of Gogol Foundation — emerging facilitator of East European projects with production companies in Poland and Ukraine. As the alumnus of National Film School in Łódź and EURODOC Glib is currently making his debut with four feature films, comprising three documentaries and one fiction piece. These works have already garnered recognition from the documentary community and have received multiple awards at events such as IDFA Forum, DOK Leipzig, FIPADOC, Sunny Side of the Doc and East Doc Platform. Glib Lukianets is currently based in Łódź. Since 2023 Glib is an expert of Ukrainian Cultural Foundation.

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Samira Moydeddin

Cultural Advisor

Team

Samira Moydeddin

Cultural Advisor

Samira Mohyeddin is an award winning Iranian - Canadian journalist and broadcaster based in Toronto. For nearly a decade she was host and producer at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation CBC Radio. Her audio documentary, Operation Good Times won Gold at the New York Festivals Award (2018) and best interview (2021). Samira has a Master of Arts in Gender and Modern Middle Eastern History from the University of Toronto (2007) and is a graduate of the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York City (1997).

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Mark Juergens

Editor

Team

Mark Juergens

Editor

Mark Juergens has been a filmmaker in New York since 1982. His work as an editor has allowed him to stumble into documentary and feature films, music videos, episodic television and all sorts experimental video weirdness, as well as editing his daughter’s birthday videos.

Recently, he spent eight years as the Senior Series Editor for How Democracy Works Now, as well as editing six of these feature length films. Forbes called the series “The Greatest Films On Government Ever Made.”

Some of his projects have aired on HBO, Comedy Central , MTV, Bravo, A&E, Discovery, History Channel, MSNBC, Logo, Lifetime and PBS. Films he’s edited have screened at Sundance, the New York Film Festival, South by Southwest, DocNYC and Berlinale. Many have won awards and had theatrical distribution.

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Alexandra Fyock

Animator

Team

Alexandra Fyock

Animator

Alex Fyock is a traditional 2D animator residing in Queens, New York. After earning a BFA in Digital Arts from Pratt Institute, she was offered the opportunity to influence the pandemic recovery effort by designing NYC’s “New York Tough” campaign. Since then, she has straddled the commercial and creative worlds. She animated the 2022 Super Bowl interviews with Ace & Son Moving Picture Co., and her portfolio of animated advertisements for brands and agencies includes PolyDor Records, Rich Media Play, and Ford Motor Company. She also works with StoryCorps on short- and feature-length animated films.

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Timmi Oyen

Composer

Team

Timmi Oyen

Composer

Timmi Oyen is a composer and musician hailing from Lodi, Wisconsin and working in Brooklyn, New York. In addition to his catalog of experimental music projects such as miPhonemusic - music created entirely with iPhone apps, Oyen avidly scores films and web-series in his own emotive style. Some recent projects include scores to Woodland View Production's "Chicks on a Bench," screened at SXSW in 2013 and featured multiple times on Daily Motion, Christopher Bye's "Deep South," and Gotham Film Festival selection "Interviews.”

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Budget

This section includes information about this project.

Production project team producer award story story director camera. Doc producer editing creative cinema team story team project visual narrative production.

Rights

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Stills

Our Ask

We are seeking partners and funding to reach completion.

· Co-producers with access to animation resources
· Executive producer mentorship
· Funding gap: $201k

The film's core message is about removing barriers of otherness. Breaking down walls. We appreciate your consideration in helping us bring this message to the world.

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Project Website

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Golf Alpha Yankee

Logline

Clips

Team

Rick Flynn

Rick Flynn

Chelsea Moore

Chelsea Moore

Glib Lukianets

Glib Lukianets

Samira Moydeddin

Samira Moydeddin

Mark Juergens

Mark Juergens

Alexandra Fyock

Alexandra Fyock

Timmi Oyen

Timmi Oyen

Budget

Rights

Stills

Our Ask