Films about Somalia: Black Hawk Down, Captain Phillips and others

Black Hawk Down (2001)

Ridley Scott's war film, from Mark Bowden's 1999 book, follows the US raid of 3 October 1993 in Mogadishu, when two Black Hawk helicopters were shot down. Released in December 2001 and January 2002, it grossed $173 million on a $92 million budget and won Oscars for film editing and sound. Wikipedia notes that it was praised by critics but also criticised for inaccuracies (Black Hawk Down, Wikipedia).

Captain Phillips (2013)

Paul Greengrass's film tells of the April 2009 hijacking of the container ship Maersk Alabama off the Somali coast and the hostage-taking of its captain, Richard Phillips, from his 2010 book. Tom Hanks plays Phillips and Barkhad Abdi, a Somali-American from Minneapolis in his first role, plays the pirate leader Abduwali Muse. It grossed $220.6 million on a $55 million budget and received six Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Best Supporting Actor for Abdi (Captain Phillips, Wikipedia).

Other piracy films

• A Hijacking (Kapringen, Denmark, 2012), by Tobias Lindholm: pirates in the Indian Ocean seize a Danish cargo ship and the company's CEO negotiates for the crew. It premiered at the Venice Film Festival (A Hijacking, Wikipedia).
• Asad (South Africa and US, 2012), a short by Bryan Buckley about a fisher boy in Somalia, cast entirely with Somali refugees in South Africa with no acting experience. It was nominated for the Oscar for best live-action short (Asad, Wikipedia; Academy Awards).
• The Pirates of Somalia (US, 2017), also by Buckley, from the journalist Jay Bahadur's 2011 book about his reporting in Puntland. Evan Peters, Al Pacino and Barkhad Abdi star; it premiered at Tribeca on 27 April 2017 (The Pirates of Somalia, Wikipedia).

War, flight and diplomacy

• Escape from Mogadishu (South Korea, 2021), by Ryoo Seung-wan, is based on the escape of North and South Korean diplomats trapped in Mogadishu as Siad Barre's government fell. It was the highest-grossing Korean film of 2021, at over $29 million, and South Korea's Oscar entry (Escape from Mogadishu, Wikipedia).
• Watu Wote: All of Us (Kenya and Germany, 2017), by Katja Benrath, is based on the December 2015 al-Shabaab attack on a bus in Mandera, Kenya, where Muslim passengers protected Christians. It won a Student Academy Award and was nominated for the Oscar for live-action short (Watu Wote, Wikipedia).
• Dirty Wars (US, 2013), a documentary by Richard Rowley with the journalist Jeremy Scahill on covert US military operations, includes filming in Somalia (Dirty Wars, Wikipedia).

Lives of Somali women

• Desert Flower (2009), by Sherry Hormann, from the autobiography of the Somali-born model Waris Dirie, follows her from a nomadic childhood to modelling and campaigning against female genital mutilation. Liya Kebede plays Dirie (Desert Flower, Wikipedia).
• A Girl from Mogadishu (Ireland and Belgium, 2019), based on the testimony of the activist Ifrah Ahmed, who campaigns against FGM. Aja Naomi King plays Ifrah, with Barkhad Abdi and the singer Maryam Mursal. It won the 2020 Cinema for Peace Women's Empowerment Award (A Girl from Mogadishu, Wikipedia).

The colonial era and Djibouti

• The Great Appeal (Il grande appello, Italy, 1936), by Mario Camerini, is a propaganda film backing Italy's war in Ethiopia, partly set in French Djibouti; Wikipedia lists it among Fascist-era African films such as Sentinels of Bronze (1937) (The Great Appeal, Wikipedia).
• Beau Travail (France, 1999), by Claire Denis, follows French Foreign Legion soldiers training in the Djibouti desert. In 2022 the Sight and Sound critics' poll ranked it the seventh best film of all time (Beau Travail, Wikipedia).

Read more

• Somali cinema
• Battle of Mogadishu, 1993
• Barkhad Abdi
• Female genital cutting