Samia Yusuf Omar is just 9 years old when she discovers her special talent: she is faster than all the other boys and girls. With her friend Ali, who is the same age, she has the goal to earn real money with running and become famous. The children make a pact: Ali becomes Samia's coach. With his help, Samia is to become a real champion. But the ongoing civil war makes life in Mogadishu increasingly difficult...
In the heart of rural Somalia, widowed mother Qalifo and her son, Asad, labor as camel herders. However, Asad has his heart set on a life in town with Ifrah, the girl of his dreams. When a young American visitor declares his love for Ifrah, the rivalry leads to murder, and Qalifo weighs in with a shocking choice that transforms all of their lives.
Amidst the lingering shadows of the Somali civil war, Qaali, an asthmatic single mother of seven, braves the slums of Kampala, striving daily in a restaurant to shield her family from the specters of their past.
How can you understand a violent past? Somali-born Abdi is furniture designer and support worker. He reenacts his life, marked by war and criminality, with the help of his neighbor and filmmaker Douwe. By means of playful reconstructions in a special effects studio, Abdi and Douwe embark on a candid and investigative journey through a painful history, focusing on the creative process throughout.
Somalia. A policewoman sits in her parked car. After a while, she gets out, puts on her service cap, and enters the prison. There, decisive hours have dawned for young Farah. Organizational machinery starts up around him. Farah is examined by a doctor, instructed by the bailiff, and looked after by an imam. Farah is waiting for his parents to visit. “How are you?” is the question everyone asks him that day. Each time, “Good” is his concise answer. Only when the policewoman takes Farah out of town the next morning does the unspeakable become a painful reality.
A look into a young Somali woman who is having difficulties speaking her mother tongue. Her father narrates the story Cigaal and the Lion Stump with the hope to persuade her to never give up on her Somali heritage.
In one of the world's largest and oldest refugee camps, Dadaab, the inhabitans survive by watching films and dreaming. The refugees cannot leave the camp, but they let their minds escape the harsh reality: by going to the simple cinema hall run by Abdikafi Mohamed, the film's protagonist.
In Somalia, principled, young husband and father Abdi turns to piracy to support his family. While his wife and child wait for him in Yemen, an outdated and fragile satellite phone is his only connection to all he truly values. Abdi and his fellow pirates hit the high seas and capture a French oil tanker, demanding a hefty ransom. During the long, tedious wait for the cash to arrive, Abdi forges a tentative friendship with one of the hostages. When some of the pirates resort to violence, Abdi must make dramatic choices to determine his course.
Jama and Samira are newly married and very happy, but when Jama's friend Yonis show up and claim that Samira is a dangerous killer, it changes everything.
Centering on the revolutionary Dervish State and its influential leader, Muhammad Abdullah Hassan (the "Mad Mullah") is an epic on the grandest scale. The film follows Hassan's life from his roots as a humble mullah to a revolutionary anti-colonial leader that fought off the British Empire for more than two decades.