A Girl From Mogadishu Wins The Cinema for Peace Woman’s Empowerment’ Award at the Berlin Film Festival
Posted: 24th February 2020
Screen Ireland-supported project A Girl from Mogadishu has been honoured by the Cinema for Peace Foundation, receiving its ‘Woman’s Empowerment’ Film of the Year Award at the 2020 Berlin Film Festival. Already recipient of the Mill Valley 42nd edition World Cinema Award in the US (shared with Pedro Almodóvar’s Pain and Glory), A Girl from Mogadishu also recently picked up both the Audience and Jury awards at the French Semaines de Cinema Britannique.
At the Berlin Film Festival last night, A Girl from Mogadishu was nominated alongside Harriet, Knock Down the House, Bombshell, Maiden and Little Women and the award was presented to writer / director Mary McGuckian.
Starring Aja Naomi King (How to Get Away with Murder) as global Female Genital Mutilation activist Ifrah Ahmed, Martha Canga Antonio (Black) and Barkhad Abdi (Captain Phillips), Orla Brady (Picard, Rose Plays Julie) as well as Somali icon, Maryam Mursal with an original score by Nitin Sawhney and featuring Quiet by Milck, the Screen Ireland supported film is based on the testimony of global Irish/Somali FGM activist Ifrah Ahmed and written and directed by Mary McGuckian.
Fleeing war-torn Somalia in 2006, Ifrah Ahmed is trafficked to Ireland where a traumatic medical examination when seeking asylum reveals the extent of her mutilation as a child. Traumatized by the memory, she channels the experience into a force for change and emerges as a formidable campaigner against Female Genital Mutilation at the highest political echelons in Ireland, across Europe and finally back in the country of her birth, Somalia.
Mary McGuckian said:
“When we celebrate female heroes in cinema – we not only amplify their voices – we empower audiences to be touched and emboldened by their courage. For Cinema for Peace Foundation to recognize the value for young women and girls in identifying with courageous characters such as Ifrah is an important step in rebalancing the gender inequity of female representation on screen. A Girl from Mogadishu is a film ‘for, by and about women’ by definition and I cannot think of a more auspicious and appropriate honor.”
Ifrah Ahmed said:
“A Girl from Mogadishu is based on my story - but it is also the story of the 200 million women and girls worldwide who have suffered the consequences of Female Genital Mutilation. And while the movie is intended to focus attention on the barbarity and scale of the practice, its ambition is also to empower all young women and girls to have the courage to stand up and speak out. So I am delighted that the movie has received this award.”
The Cinema for Peace Foundation’s mission is to foster change through film. Since 2001, the initiative has honored films that influence the perception of global social, political and humanitarian challenges. Supporting important causes is key to the initiative and past honorees include artists such as Angelina Jolie, Leonardo DiCaprio, Julia Roberts, Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman and personalities such as The Dalai Lama, Muhamad Ali, Bill and Hillary Clinton and former honorary patron Nelson Mandela.
The 2019 Cinema for Peace Foundation awards went to Capernaum, RGB, Watergate and The Elephant Queen. Previous Irish honorees have included Terry George in 2005 for Hotel Rwanda, Bob Geldof for his humanitarian work in 2007 and Liam Neeson and James Nesbit for Five Minutes of Heaven in 2010.
A Girl From Mogadishu will be released in Ireland on 3 April 2020, following a charity premiere in Dublin in aid of Ifrah Foundation on March 24th. There will be a special screening at the IFI followed by a Q&A with director Mary McGuckian and Ifrah Ahmed on evening of April 3rd.