The Village Next To Paradise

Horizons 2024 / The Village Next To Paradise / Austria, France, Germany, Somalia 2024

The Village Next To Paradise

Synopsis

One of the few African films in this year’s programme and the first Somali film ever screened at Cannes follows the life of a family living in a windswept village on the shores of the Indian Ocean. Single father Mamargade digs graves and runs legally questionable errands in order to secure a better future for his young son. Rounding out the film’s trio of protagonists – who all follow their own ambitions in a country wracked by civil war, natural disasters, and the ever-present danger of American drone strikes – is Mamargade’s newly divorced sister. This highly artistic, sensitively aesthetic film shows the contemporary reality of Somalia subtly and with a dose of existentialist questioning that mixes reflections on everyday difficulties with a glimmer of hope for a better future.

Vojtěch Kočárník

About the film

133 min / Color, DCP

Director Mo Harawe / Screenplay Mo Harawe / Dir. of Photography Mostafa El Kashef / Sound Willis Abuto, Anne Gibourg, Guadalupe Cassius, Christophe Vingtrinier / Editor Joana Scrinzi / Art Director Nuur Abdulkadir / Producer Oliver Neumann, Sabine Moser / Production Freibeuter Film / Coproduction Kazak Productions, Niko Film / Cast Ahmed Ali Farah, Anab Ahmed Ibrahim, Ahmed Mohamud Saleban / Sales Totem Films

About the director

Mo Harawe

Mo Harawe (1992, Mogadishu, Somalia). Filmography: Life on the Horn (2020, short), Will My Parents Come to See Me (2022, short), The Village Next To Paradise (2024).

Contacts

Totem Films
5 rue de Charonne, 750 11, Paris
France
Phone: +33 630 847 575
E-mail: hello@totem-films.com