As cinema returns to Somalia, upcoming film Ayaanle rides the wave

NAIROBI, Nov 26 (Reuters) – Within the new movie “Ayaanle”, a Somali actor dwelling in a poor neighbourhood in Nairobi goals of a breakthrough function to take him to Hollywood, however is annoyed when he is solely ever forged as a pirate or terrorist.

“I solely have two traces,” the character – whose identify, Ayaanle, can also be the movie’s title – complains bitterly. “‘I kill you’ and ‘Allahu Akbar’.”

The brand new 90-minute movie, due for launch in February, follows the success of , by a Finnish-Somali director, and the primary for 3 a long time in Somalia’s war-ravaged capital Mogadishu. The newly refurbished Nationwide Theatre confirmed Ayaanle’s trailer this week.

The story is about Nairobi’s suburb of Eastleigh, residence to many Somali households. Ayaanle is performed by Somali-American actor Barkhad Abdirahman, who was in Academy Award-nominated movies “Captain Philips” alongside Tom Hanks, and “Watu Wote” made in Kenya.

Because the story begins, Ayaanle finds the American accent he has cultivated means he is charged extra within the routine shakedowns from cops in his neighbourhood – they suppose he is been dwelling overseas so he should have cash.

To recoup the bribe, he impersonates a member of Somalia’s al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab insurgency to rip-off $500 from a gullible Western journalist.

However police recognise his TV interview and he turns into entangled with an elite anti-terrorism unit whose banter is as slick as their fits.

Somali-Dutch director Ahmed Farah wrote the film based mostly on scams he noticed whereas working as a information cameraman for networks like Al Jazeera and Britain’s Channel 4. He says a couple of Eastleigh residents routinely impersonated pirates for reporters.

“I heard a variety of attention-grabbing tales – tales that you just hear when the digicam is off,” stated 43-year-old Farah, who used to shoot movies for MTV.

Farah stated it took him eight years to write down, finance and shoot the movie, which at occasions was such a pressure that his blood strain rocketed and he fainted.

With funding from Somali businessmen and different donors, capturing lastly started in November 2019 however Farah quickly ran out of money. Work on the movie briefly resumed in 2020 till Kenya went into lockdown because of COVID-19.

Once they might lastly restart eight months later, Abdirahman broke his rib in an accident, and different actors confirmed up trying totally different after months of lockdown, sporting new hairstyles or having placed on weight.

However there have been upsides too: the Eastleigh neighborhood rallied across the movie, donating refreshments, or properties to make use of as units. The police supplied automobiles, unloaded weapons, and set safety.

They let Farah into the native jail so he might construct a reproduction set – memorably portrayed when a neighborhood elder will get propositioned by a sequin-clad intercourse employee when attempting to bail out Ayaanle.

A lot of the crew and actors had skilled the type of police harassment proven within the movie, Abdirahman stated, and lots of have been nervous about publicly appearing like terrorists – particularly when police have been round.

“They stated ‘If these cops have our footage later when this movie is finished they may come and interrogate us and put us in jail’ – the identical state of affairs the principle character Ayaanle went by way of,” Abdiraman instructed Reuters.

Farah stated that is why he is so excited by the blossoming of Somali cinema – and the possibility to indicate greater than pirates, refugees, militants and struggle.

“We are able to at all times complain that the world will not be telling the true tales of Somalia however its us who wants to inform the tales,” he stated. “We have to inform our tales not simply to the world however to ourselves.”

Reporting by Katharine Houreld
Modifying by Raissa Kasolowsky

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