The Gravedigger’s Wife
Khadar Ayderus Ahmed | Finland/Germany/France | 2021
| Director: Khadar Ayderus Ahmed Producers: Robin Boespflug Vonier, Martin Hampel, Misha Jaari, Thanassis Karathanos, Mark Lwoff, Risto Nikkilä, Stéphane Parthenay Screenplay: Khadar Ayderus Ahmed Cinematography: Arttu Peltomaa Editor: Sebastian Thümler Music: Andre Matthi | Omar Abdi (Guled) Yasmin Warsame (Nasra) Kadar Abdoul-Aziz Ibrahim (Mahad) Samaleh Ali Obsieh (Ali) Hamdi Ahmed Omar (Hassan) Awa Ali Nour (Zahra) Amina Ayanleh Omar (Nimco) Mouhoubo Osman Eleyeh (Anisa) |
Rating: M Runtime: 82 minutes
The universality of cinema is no more apparent than in this film, set in the tiny African nation of Djibouti, a striking debut feature from Khadar Ayderus Ahmed, born in Somalia, but who left with his family as a refugee to Finland when he was sixteen.
At its heart, this is a simple film about love – a husband’s love for his wife. Guled is a gravedigger, who needs to come up with a large sum of cash when his wife Nasra is diagnosed with a chronic kidney disease. However the money he earns as a gravedigger is nowhere near enough to cover the cost so he embarks on a journey back to his family village to seek his only option to fund his wife’s operation. While this is an uncomplicated story, the moments within it, are what make it special – the interactions Guled has with his fellow gravediggers, the light of the moon over the desert and the sense of joie de vivre of Guled and Nasra, even with the sombre background.
“It’s a gentle, humorous film in Africa’s quietist cinema tradition with grace notes of irony and wit.” – Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
Screened in cooperation with Institut Français and the Embassy of France