Birds Like Us

Birds Like Us (Bosnian: Ptice kao mi; Turkish: Kuşlar Bizim Gibi) is a 2017 animated fantasy adventure film directed by Faruk Šabanović and Amela Ćuhara. The film is an animated free adaptation of the Attar of Nishapur poem, "The Conference of the Birds".^[2] It features the Peter Gabriel song "Everybird", which was composed for the film and also appears on the album "Rated PG".^[3]

Birds Like Us
Film poster
Bosnian	Ptice kao mi
Turkish	Kuşlar Bizim Gibi
Directed by	Faruk Šabanović Amela Ćuhara
Written by	Olivia Hetreed Faruk Šabanović
Based on	The Conference of the Birds by Attar of Nishapur
Produced by	Adnan Ćuhara
Cinematography	Faruk Šabanović
Music by	Timothy Bruzon Peter Gabriel
Production companies	Prime Time Turkish Radio & Television Autonomous Fork Films
Distributed by	Lionsgate Grindstone Entertainment Group (United States) Kaleidoscope Film Distribution (United Kingdom)
Release dates	May 5, 2017 (2017-05-05) (Stuttgart) August 16, 2017 (2017-08-16) (Sarajevo) November 30, 2017 (2017-11-30) (Doha) October 16, 2018 (2018-10-16) (Turkey) January 25, 2022 (2022-01-25) (United States)
Running time	84 minutes
Countries	Bosnia and Herzegovina Turkey United Kingdom United States Qatar
Language	English
Budget	€ 7.5 million[1]
Box office	€ 2 million

Cast

• Alicia Vikander: Huppu
• Jeremy Irons: Kondor / Mi
• Jim Broadbent: Horozovich
• Sheridan Smith: Gavra
• Kevin Bishop: Hassan
• Christopher Villiers: Craven
• Michele Austin: Jula
• Khalid Abdalla: Bat
• Ella Smith: Tifa

Critical reception

Writing for Screen Daily, critic Wendy Ide reported that the film "eschews the source material’s delicate layering of symbolic allusion in favour of a baffling assault of visual non-sequiturs," and that "thanks to the esoteric plotting and disorientating animation, clarity is missing in action."^[4] A review on Dove.org described the film as not "look[ing] like your garden-variety animated film" and that "It’s occasionally funny [and] eventually hopeful."^[5]