In the new film “Ayaanle”, a Somali actor living in a poor neighbourhood in Nairobi dreams of a breakthrough role to take him to Hollywood, but is frustrated when he’s only ever cast as a pirate or terrorist.
“I only have two lines,” the character – whose name, Ayaanle, is also the film’s title – complains bitterly. “’I kill you’ and ‘Allahu Akbar’.”
The new 90-minute film, due for release in February, follows the success of The Gravedigger’s Wife, by a Finnish-Somali director, and the first film screening for three decades in Somalia’s war-ravaged capital Mogadishu. The newly refurbished National Theatre showed Ayaanle’s trailer this week.
The story is set Nairobi’s suburb of Eastleigh, home to many Somali families. Ayaanle is played by Somali-American actor Barkhad Abdirahman, who was in Academy Award- nominated films “Captain Philips” alongside Tom Hanks, and “Watu Wote” made in Kenya.