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Scythia Films, the production banner behind “The Apprentice,” has tapped Lula Ali Ismaïl to direct “Nuur,” the story of an academically gifted 17-year-old boy growing up in Dixon, a Somali community in Toronto. Omar Abdi, who appeared in “The Gravedigger’s Wife,” and Hamza Fouad, best known for his work in “Riverdale” and “Arrow,” are attached to star.

The film is adapted from Hassan Ghedi Santur’s novel “The Youth of God,” with the author writing the adaptation of his book. The film will be produced by Daniel Bekerman, Chris Yurkovich and Lara Saliba under the Good Question Media banner in association with Scythia Films. Jordan Hart, Michael Bronner and Bhakti Shringarpure of Smashing Dandelions will be executive producing. Telefilm Canada is funding the production. Additional casting is currently underway.

The film explores themes of migration, assimilation, intergenerational trauma and the struggle for identity. It centers on a boy named Nuur,...

Jane the Virgin will become a proud young Zulu woman in a South African remake of the romantic comedy-drama format.

The format’s rights holder, Propagate International, has licensed the rights to Alta Global Media to develop a South African version of the series, which will be shot in the local language and run to 12 episodes.

The adaptation will be targeted at Sub-Saharan African territories. It’ll be based on The CW’s version of Jane the Virgin, which ran for five seasons on the network after Ben Silverman, who is now Propagate’s Chairman and Co-CEO, acquired rights to the format from Venezuelan network Rctv International.

The U.S. show had veered from the format of the original Venezuelan telenovela Juana La Virgen, created by Perla Farías Lombardini.

South African director Mandlakayise Dube, known for most recently helming Netflix film Silverton Siege, is on board to direct the pilot.

Khadar Ayderus Ahmed’s strong, big-hearted film is the classy story of a man seeking money for his wife’s operation

Somali-born film-maker Khadar Ayderus Ahmed has had a deserved festival success with this debut feature, set in Djibouti. It’s a gentle, humorous film in Africa’s quietist cinema tradition with grace notes of irony and wit.

Guled (Omar Abdi) is a gravedigger, who lives with his wife Nasra (Yasmin Warsame) and young son Mahad (Kadar Abdoul-Aziz Ibrahim); he is in fact more like an itinerant labourer, hanging out with other gravediggers with their shovels over their shoulders, waiting for work; they occasionally even chase ambulances into the hospital forecourt, eagerly clustering round as the poor patient is carted out, hoping for the worst. But when his wife is diagnosed with a serious kidney illness, needing an emergency operation costing 5,000, Guled is struck with a sickening realisation, never explicitly spelled out,...

The title premiered in Cannes Critics’ Week in 2021.

Aya Films, a UK distribution company with a focus on African and Black films, has acquired Finnish-Somali filmmaker Khadar Ayderus Ahmed’s directorial debut The Gravedigger’s Wife.

The Somali-language feature will be released theatrically from October 21 across the UK. It will mark the first time a fully Somali-language feature has been released in UK cinemas. France’s Orange Studio handles international sales.

The title premiered in 2021 at Cannes Critics’ Week, and made history in the same year as Somalia’s first ever Oscar submission.

Set in Djibouti City in the Horn of Africa,...

Some stories of struggle and survival have the power to grip you and The Gravedigger’s Wife does so with a certain ease.

Part of this year’s Glasgow Film Festival African Stories strand comes the latest from writer-director Khadar Ayderus Ahmed. And there’s much to cheer about with movie picking up Best Film at the African Movie Academy Awards 2021.

Set in the city of Djibouti it opens with a group of men digging graves where we are introduced to Guled (Omar Abdi). We follow Guled who is battling to provide for his family, be a role model to his son Mahad (Kadar Abdoul-Aziz Ibrahim) and take care of his sick wife Nasra (Yasmin Warsame). From here we see him dealing with this turmoil in his life and his decision to go the arduous journey for help in paying medical bills.

From the start you get a sense that...

This debut feature from Khadar Ayderus Ahmed - which has a fable-like quality - is a sharp reminder that universal healthcare, rough around the edges though it might sometimes be, remains a triumph in the face of wider inequalities, allowing much fairer access for all than many global systems.

The situation is brought sharply home in the Finnish-Somalia writer/director's film as Guled (Omar Abdi), who spends his time at the hospital gates waiting for the death of others, so that he can make ends meet and finds himself staring it straight in the face when his wife Nasra becomes sick with kidney disease and requires a $5,000 operation, which they cannot afford.

There's a straightforwardness to the telling of this tale - which is Somalia's Oscar nomination and screening at Glasgow Film Festival - that adds to its accessibility despite its strong...

CAA has signed Khadar Ayderus Ahmed, the up-and-coming director of “The Gravedigger’s Wife,” Somalia’s first ever official submission for the Oscars international feature film race.

“The Gravedigger’s Wife,” Ahmed’s feature debut,” world premiered at Cannes’ Critics’ Week and went on to win the Amplify Voices Award at Toronto. The film also played BFI London, Chicago and Palm Springs, as well as the Pan-African Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (Fespaco) where it scooped the top prize.

The movie recently played in Mogadishu at the National Theatre of Somalia, Ahmed’s native country. Orange Studio represents the film in international markets. It was produced by Finland’s Bufo, and co-produced by Germany’s Twenty Twenty Vision and France’s Pyramide Productions.

Set in the African town of Djibouti City, the drama portrays a poverty-stricken family and revolves around a gravedigger (Omar Abdi) on a desperate quest to fund an...

In a ghoulish age when many Americans are resorting to online crowdfunding to finance potentially lifesaving health care, the simple, sorrowful fable spun by “The Gravedigger’s Wife” may not feel as distant to Western viewers as it looks. Charting the increasingly desperate efforts of a poverty-stricken Djibouti family to fund an urgent kidney operation that is cruelly beyond their means, this plaintively moving from other, soapier dramas on the subject.

Though “The Gravedigger’s Wife” is effectively a European production, co-financed by Finland, France and Germany, it feels authentically embedded in the everyday fabric of life on the impoverished outskirts of Djibouti, its perspective free from exoticization or condescension. Neighboring Somalia, where Ahmed was born and raised, has entered it as its international Oscar submission, a further boost to the profile of a film already warmly received on this year’s festival circuit, beginning with a Cannes Critics’ Week premiere. Though...

Africa’s biggest film festival unfolded in Burkina Faso from October 16 to 23.

Finnish-Somali filmmaker Khadar Ayderus Ahmed’s The Gravedigger’s Wife scooped the top prize at the 27th edition of the Pan-African Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (Fespaco) in Burkina Faso over the weekend.

The largest film festival in Africa, the biannual event normally takes place end-February, start-March but was pushed to October 16-23 this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Its top prize is the $36,000 Golden Stallion of Yennenga (Étalon de Yennenga) award. The prizes are named after legendary warrior princess Yennenga, who is considered the mother...

Other African submissions so far include Nabil Ayouch’s Casablanca Beats for Morocco.

Finnish-Somali filmmaker Khadar Ayderus Ahmed’s The Gravedigger’s Wife, which world premiered in Cannes Critics’ Week in July, has been selected as Somalia’s first-ever Oscar submission for the 2022 Academy Awards.

Set in Djibouti City in the Horn of Africa, the drama stars Finnish-Somali actor Omar Abdi as a gravedigger on a quest to raise the money for the kidney transplant desperately needed by his beloved wife, played by Canadian-Somali model and actress Yasmin Warsame.

The film’s selection for consideration in the best international film category...

Finnish writer-director Khadar Ayderus Ahmed, born in Mogadishu, continues to enjoy his first feature’s successful festival run. Screening this week in Toronto, “The Gravedigger’s Wife” premiered at Cannes Critics’ Week in July.

“We finished the shoot in 2019. We were invited to Cannes last year, but decided to wait for better times,” explains the helmer. “In Cannes, me and my family, and my actors, we were the only Somalis in the audience. Now, in Toronto, there is this big Somali community. They are excited and waiting for the film – people are sending me screenshots of their tickets!”

Inspired by a sudden death that happened in his family 10 years ago in Helsinki, the film shows a man who “hunts bodies for a living,” waiting in front of hospitals for new corpses to bury. But when his wife (Canadian model Yasmin Warsame) needs expensive surgery, gravedigger Guled (Omar Abdi) and his young...

A tribute to the Nordic film industry’s resilience, four Nordic titles have made it through to Cannes’ Official Selection. And unlike previous years, when Denmark or Sweden (Rüben Östlund) drew most of the worldwide attention, audiences should watch out for new and established voices from Norway, Finland and Iceland.

“Compartment No. 6”

Juho Kuosmanen’s sophomore feature marks Finland’s return to competition after a decade away (the previous Finnish film in competition was Aki Kaurismäki’s “Le Havre”). The Finnish director won Un Certain Regard back in 2016 with his black-and- white debut, “The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki.” The story of a young Finnish student and a misanthropic Russian miner who share a journey along the Soviet Union’s trans-Siberian railway in the late 1980s, “Compartment No. 6” stars Seidi Haarla, one of the Berlinale’s 10 Shooting Stars.

“The Gravedigger’s Wife”

Finland makes history this year...

"I'm forty-five years old, and I hunt dead bodies for a living." ScreenDaily has revealed an official promo trailer for an indie film from Africa titled The Gravedigger's Wife, marking the feature directorial debut of a Somalian filmmaker named Khadar Ahmed. This is premiering at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival in the sidebar known as Critics' Week (Semaine de la Critique), where they often premiere a lot of great under-the-radar films. The Gravedigger's Wife is set in the East Africa country of Djibouti. In times of misfortune, Guled and his family have to push themselves to the limits. Guled is already working hard as a gravedigger to make ends meet: how can they find more money to save Nasra and keep the family together? The film stars Omar Abdi as Guled, Yasmin Warsame, Kadar Abdoul-Aziz Ibrahim, Samaleh Ali Obsieh, Hamdi Ahmed Omar, and Awa Ali Nour. "The family drama plays out...

Drama unfolds against the colourful backdrop of Djibouti CIty in Horn of Africa.

Screen can exclusively reveal the first trailer for Finnish-Somali filmmaker Khadar Ayderus Ahmed’s The Gravedigger’s Wife ahead of its world premiere in Cannes Critics’ Week in July.

Set in Djibouti City in the Horn of Africa, it stars Finnish-Somali actor Omar Abdi as a struggling gravedigger on a quest to raise the money for the kidney transplant desperately needed by his beloved wife, played by Canadian-Somali model and actress Yasmin Warsame.

The family drama plays out against the colourful backdrop of the makeshift homes and teeming streets of Djibouti City,...

Parallel section will showcase 13 first and second features and 10 short films.

Cannes Critics’ Week 2021 has unveiled the line-up of its 60th edition, following last year’s hiatus due to the pandemic, running July 7 to 15 alongside the Cannes Film Festival.

It will showcase 13 features, seven of them in competition, as well as 10 short films.

French director Constance Meyer’s debut feature Robust, co-starring Gérard Depardieu opposite Divines discovery Déborah Lukumuena will open the section on July 7. Depardieu plays an ageing actor star in decline who hires Lukumuena’s character, a semi-professional wrestler, as a bodyguard at short notice. The seemingly disparate...

French production and sales arm will unveil four new films at the EFM.

France’s Orange Studio will kick off sales this EFM on French director Sophie Boudre’s intergenerational comedy-drama Schoolmates!, the latest production from Paris-based Vendôme Production, the company behind La Famille Bélier and English-language remake Coda.

Based on a true story, popular comedy actress Alice Pol co-stars as a village school headmistress whose school burns down forcing her to move her classroom into a local retirement home. Cohabitation between the children and seniors will not be easy. Jonathan Zaccaï and veteran French pop icon Eddy Mitchell also top the cast.

Emerging African filmmakers triumph at project development event.

Ethiopian director Hiwot Admasu Getaneh’s Addis Ababa-set tale of self-discovery Sweet Annoyance scooped the top €10,000 development prize at the Marrakech International Film Festival’s second Atlas Workshops on Friday (Dec 6).

The four-day meeting drew some 270 international cinema professionals and presented 28 projects in development and post-production from Middle Eastern, North African and African filmmakers.

The jury for the 10 projects in the running for the Atlas Development Awards was composed of Moroccan director Laïla Marrakchi, Lebanese producer Georges Schoucair and Juliette Schrameck, managing director of Paris-based mk2 Films.

Set against the nightlife of the Ethiopian capital,...

Haugesund, Norway — Actor Omar Abdi, who starred in the Ahmed-scripted short “Citizens,” and actress Yasmin Warsame, who made her name as a Canadian model, will topline romantic-tragedy “The Gravedigger,” the latest big screen project from Bufo, the Helsinki-based outfit behind Berlinale winner “The Other Side of Hope.”

The film follows a Djibouti gravedigger trying to re-unite his family in a time of strife.

Bufo founders Mark Lwoff and Misha Jaari will lead the charge on this international co-production, working alongside France’s Pyramide Productions and Germany’s Twenty Twenty Vision Filmproduktion.

Financing partners include Finland’s Church Media Foundation and The Finnish Film Foundation, France’s Cnc, The Arab Fund for Arts and Culture and World Cinema Fund, and Germany’s Ffhsh, along with co-production partners Yle and Zdf/Arte.

The Somali-language film will begin lensing in Djibouti this October, with an intended finish date of Spring 2020. Bufo’s boutique...