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
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
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).
Totem Films
5 rue de Charonne, 750 11, Paris
France
Phone: +33 630 847 575
E-mail: [email protected]
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