The Village Next To Paradise

In his debut film The Village Next to Paradise, the first Somali film ever to be featured at the Cannes Film Festival, director Mo Harawe focuses on a family trying to make the best of a bad situation. Caught between dream and drone, that is how one could describe the life of single father Mamargade and his clever son Cigaal. They live in a remote village on the Indian Ocean, complete with white sandy beaches under an idyllic blue sky. Yet a constant sense of dread hangs in the air of their small Somali village, as the war on terror means a drone strike could occur at any moment.

Young Cigaal shares his imaginative dreams with anyone willing to listen, while Mamargade's divorced sister Araweelo hopes to buy a sewing machine so she can open a small shop. With an impartial, cinematic gaze, Harawe brings the viewer close to his characters, who pursue their modest goals with dignity.

In this quietly stunning debut, three characters follow their own path, perhaps not to paradise but to something close to it. Through this heartwarming film, Harawe offers his characters and his country an invaluable gift of hope. Rarely has the theme of resilience and hope been portrayed in such an undramatic and unsentimental way. In that, the film is far more powerful than many others that claim to be about hope.