Finnish Somali film director Khadar Ayderus Ahmed is developing his follow-up, “Thundering Smoke,” whose debut feature of “The Gravedigger’s Wike,” premiered in Cannes Critics Week in 2021.
Ahmed will present the project at Finnish Film Affair, an annual industry event running in parallel with Helsinki INTL. Film Festival – Love & Anarchy will be held from September 24th to 26th.
“Thundering Smoke” is located in a Somali village that is dramatically resurfaced a few years after Barni, a mysterious hit woman in her 50s, disappeared without traces. There she intends to revenge against Aldo, a vicious gangster who rules the village with iron fists.
One fateful night, the young Bass conductor witnesses a fatal sword fight between Barni and members of the Aldo murder gang. Driven by insatiable curiosity about a mysterious older woman, he embarks on a secret mission to track her down and discover her true identity.
Written and directed by Ahmed, “Thundering Smoke” is produced by Sébastien Onomo for the French production costume special touch studio, and is based in Helsinki, Rabbit Films, a production and distributor based in Luckembourg, and Pirian ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna ferna fer
Speaking to Variety ahead of the events of Finnish cinema, Ahmed described his second feature as “a much more ambitious film” than his acclaimed debut, calling it an attempt to “really push the boundaries (and see how far I can go as a filmmaker).
“It’s really a cross genre film that blends fantasy, romance, suspense and drama. There’s a lot of samurai elements,” he said. “It follows the emotional journey of two different worlds, two different generations of these two lonely souls. A boy experiencing love for the first time, and this older woman who has long given up on love – and the unexpected bond they form.”
The director noted the similarities between the two films. This assumes as part of a trilogy, “On the lengths people can go for the people they love,” but in his latest effort “is completely different to The Gravedigger’s wife.”
With the ambitious 5-country co-production partners already in place, Ahmed hopes to start location scouts in East Africa later this year.
Born in Mogadishu, Ahmed left Somalia as a teenager and spent most of his adult life in Helsinki, where he cut his teeth as a filmmaker. After writing and directing a series of well-traveled shorts, including collaborations with Finnish compatriots and directors of “Compartment No. 6,” he made his directorial debut alongside “Graigdigger’s Wife.”
The film tells the story of a poverty-stricken family in Djibouti who desperately seeks to fund kidney surgery, and after succumbing to the week of critics and opening the Finnish film incident that year, he enjoyed a strong festival run. Variety’s Guy Lodge described it as a “debut function of a disastrous movement” that identifies the universal tension of social injustice, but presents a cultural specificity that is large enough to stand out from other soapier dramas on other subjects. The film was submitted to Somalia’s Best International Feature Academy Awards.
“Gravediger’s Wife” was an unexpected breakout from the African horns – the region with a small cinema footprint on the global stage – perhaps no one was shocked by the success of a film’s runaway success like Ahmed. “At the time I didn’t even know if I wanted to direct, I just wanted to be a screenwriter,” he said. But eventually he realized that “I might never find a way to tell someone who can tell this story.”
The film not only marked Ahmed’s debut as a feature film director after filming his previous shorts in Finland, but also marked his first filmmaking venture in Africa. The experience is like a revelation at the age of 44, and admits that it was the second half of my life that I discovered African films.
“I really fell in love with (African films) and it was more relevant to them than Hollywood or Bollywood films,” he said. “That was how my relationship, my desire to make films in Africa began.”
The love story only deepened over time, and his own experience behind the camera.
“After arriving in Djibouti and starting filming (‘Gravedigger’s Wife’), I fell in love even more because of all the possibilities this country has offered us as a filmmaker,” he said. “Color, the sun. You just turn, and it’s a completely different landscape.”
It took only 21 days to film his debut, but the “Thunder Smoke” budget allows Ahmed to work on a larger scale, but Africa alone seems to be able to provide a spacious canvas for the director’s vision. “It’s just endless possibilities,” he said.
