18/12/2024 - In their powerful biopic, Yasemin Samdereli and Deka Mohamed Osman shine a light on the exceptional and poignant fate of Somalian athlete Samia Yusuf Omar

"I’ll be the fastest girl in the world." When a child from Mogadishu - born in Somalia in 1991 when the country had long been plagued by internal armed conflict - delivers a statement with such certainty and self-assurance, we can’t help but smile, as if in a sweet, fleeting dream. But Samia Yusuf Omar had athleticism in her DNA and, ultimately, she made it all the way to the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. It’s this very real and extraordinary trajectory - fuelled by hopes and dramas, previously charted in Giuseppe Catozzella’s novel Don’t Tell Me You’re Afraid - which inspired German-Turkish filmmaker Yasemin Samdereli and Italian-Somalian director Deka Mohamed Osman to make the fiction feature film Samia [+see also:
interview: Yasemin Şamdereli, Deka Moh…
film profile], which earned a Special Mention in Tribeca and was presented in a French premiere within the Playtime section of the 16th Les Arcs Film Festival.

Opened by TV archives which succinctly explain the Somalian state of affairs in the wake of Siad Barre’s dictatorship, the film unfolds across two separate time periods: 2011-2012, when Samia (Ilham Mohamed Osman) tries to migrate to Europe and ends up trapped by greedy (and violent) smugglers in the Libyan desert, and the turn of the millennium when Samia as a little girl (Riyan Roble) finishes 8th in an annual race involving amateurs and professionals, on the streets of the Somali capital. Encouraged by her father (Fatah Ghedi) and determined to win the next edition ("I can do it and I will do it"), Samia trains tirelessly with the help of her young cousin Ali (Zakaria Mohammed), despite hostility from one particular contingent of her family (who all live under the same roof) who are convinced, on account of religion and the patriarchy, that women shouldn’t entertain these kinds of dreams. But nothing will get in Samia’s way, not even the misfortune raining down upon her country and loved ones, and she grows up to become the fastest woman in Somalia…

Amidst curfews, armed militias, the yoke of the Islamic Court ("times have changed. You have to wear the veil” – “How am I going to run with it on?"), and Samia’s sporting ascent despite local complications, the film skilfully blends distant and recent history (mostly through radio news broadcasts to mark the passage of time), right up to the Holy Grail of taking part in the Olympic Games. But then comes exile ("you’re in danger, they’re keeping an eye on you because you ran without the veil") and other perils. A highly endearing portrait of a heroic fate, and a tragic symbol of the fight for emancipation, Samia is a luminous film which is accessible to all audiences and which is perfectly rounded off by Rodrigo D’Erasmo’s music. And as the final song whispers: "in this sense, we can say that we know her." 

Samia was produced by Italy, Germany, Belgium, the UK and Sweden via Indyca, RAI Cinema, Neue Bioskop Film, Tarantula, BIM Produzione, Momento Film, Pont Neuf Productions and Film I Vast, with mk2 Films steering international sales.

(Translated from French)