Somali cinema: films made by Somalis, from The Somali Dervish to The Gravedigger's Wife

The state era: The Somali Dervish

The Somali Dervish (Darwiishka Soomaaliyeed) was directed by Said Salah and Amar Sneh between 1983 and 1985. With a budget of $1.8 million and a running time of 4 hours 40 minutes, it told the life of Mohammed Abdullah Hassan, leader of the Dervish movement. The dialogue used seven languages, including Somali, Arabic, Italian and English, and the lead role was played by a descendant of the Sayyid, Sheikh Osman Mohamoud Omar (The Somali Dervish, Wikipedia; Amar Sneh). The film was long thought lost. In 2019 a reel was found at the National Film Archive of India in Pune, 34 years after it was made (Hindustan Times).

Abdulkadir Ahmed Said's short films

• Geedka nolosha (The Tree of Life, 1988): a man fells a tree and finds himself alone in a desert, intercut with scenes of deforestation and famine. It won the Prize of the City of Torino for best international short at the Torino International Festival of Young Cinema in 1988 (Geedka nolosha, Wikipedia; IMDb).
• La Conchiglia (The Conch, 1992): a painter hears in a conch the voice of a girl whose coastal town was poisoned by toxic waste dumped from a boat (La Conchiglia, Wikipedia).

Documentaries on Somalia

The Parching Winds of Somalia (1984), produced by the historian Charles Geshekter with support from the US National Endowment for the Humanities, shows how Somali nomads lived with a harsh climate and colonial rule, using location footage, archive photos, interviews and Somali music. PBS released it on video in 1993 (The Parching Winds of Somalia, Wikipedia).

Lula Ali Ismaïl: Laan and Dhalinyaro

Lula Ali Ismaïl, a Djiboutian actor who had worked in Canadian television, made the short Laan (Friends, 2011) about three young women in Djibouti, khat and love (Laan, Wikipedia; Touki Montréal). Her feature Dhalinyaro (Youth, 2017) follows three young women from different backgrounds. It premiered in July 2017 as the first feature film in Djibouti's history, was filmed entirely in Djibouti in Somali and French, and was co-produced in Canada, Somalia, France and Djibouti with support from the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (Dhalinyaro, Wikipedia; Mail & Guardian, July 2020).

The Gravedigger's Wife (2021)

Khadar Ayderus Ahmed, a Somali-Finnish director, made The Gravedigger's Wife (Guled & Nasra), his first feature, inspired by a death in his own family. A gravedigger in Djibouti, Guled (Omar Abdi), struggles to pay for surgery for his wife Nasra (Yasmin Warsame). It was shot in 2019, a French, German and Finnish co-production (The Gravedigger's Wife, Wikipedia).

• Premiered in Critics' Week at the Cannes Film Festival, 2021 (Variety).
• Won an Amplify Voices Award at the Toronto International Film Festival, 2021 (TheWrap).
• Somalia's first ever submission for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film, at the 94th Oscars (Variety).

Barni (2025)

Barni is the first feature by Mohammed Sheikh, a Somali Minnesotan who founded Aleel Films in 2018 and made short films about Somalis in the Twin Cities. Unable to shoot in Minnesota or Somalia, he filmed in Djibouti in January 2024 with a mostly local Somali cast. It premiered in competition at the Red Sea International Film Festival in 2025. Screen Daily called it a "showcase for new voices emerging in a resurgent Somali film industry" (MPR News, September 2025; Screen Daily).

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• Films about Somalia
• Yasmin Warsame
• Barkhad Abdi
• Somali music