GOODBYE, SNOBALL by Rasel Ahmed | USA | 2025

Duration: 00:20:00

Goodbye, Snoball is a poetic exploration of D.C.-based activist Sergei Kostin’s relationship with his aging dog, Snoball, amid the chaos of the 2020 US election.

DIRECTOR, WRITER, CINEMATOGRAPHY, EDITING : Rasel Ahmed
PRODUCERS : Arifur Rahman, Bijon, Rasel Ahmed
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS : Sakib Iftekhar, Rasel Ahmed
PRODUCTION COMPANY : Goopy Bagha Production LTD, Screenxcope
ORIGINAL MUSIC : Luc Cianfarani
MOTION GRAPHICS : Olokkhi

CONTACTS / LINKS : @ahmedzras

Sergei Kostin, a Washington, D.C. activist, navigates the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic and the political unrest following the murder of George Floyd. His days move between crowded street protests and the quiet intimacy of caring for his aging dog, Snoball. As the 2020 U.S. election pulls thousands into the capital, Sergei faces a more personal reckoning: how to say goodbye to his beloved dog. Goodbye, Snoball is a poetic meditation on love and loss in turbulent political times.

Director’s statement
I began filming Goodbye, Snoball after my friend Sergei told me he was scared of being killed by the police. It was 2020. After the murder of George Floyd, Sergei spent a lot of time at protests in Washington, D.C. At the same time, COVID-19 had emptied the city out. Everyone was anxious and uncertain about what would happen next.

Most days, Sergei would come home from protests and spend the rest of the time with his dog, Snoball. Snoball was old and slowing down, and little by little, Sergei was trying to accept that he might not have much time left with him.

I thought I was making a film about a specific moment in America. But the longer I lived with the footage, the more it became a film about holding onto tenderness at an uncertain political moment. Even now, the film reminds me how grief and love can exist side by side, even in a deeply unstable world.

Bio
Rasel Ahmed is a displaced filmmaker, activist, and educator whose work interrogates the delicate relationships between identity, memory, and space. His films have been screened at prestigious international venues including the Okayama Art Summit, Wexner Center for the Arts, and Lenfest Center for the Arts. Ahmed is the recipient of many prestigious awards and fellowships including the Avijit Roy Courage Award, UnionDocs Summer Lab, PRISM Foundation Grant, and Greater Columbus Arts Council Grant, among others. When not behind the camera, Ahmed runs the Queer Archives of the Bengal Delta, a groundbreaking initiative preserving Bangladeshi queer histories that might otherwise be lost. He is an Assistant Professor of Filmmaking at The Ohio State University.

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