Horseed
Spring Grants 2017 - Production Stage
Hana Mire / Feature Documentary / Somalia, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States of America, Sweden, Congo, Republic of, Qatar / 90 min / Original Language: English, Somali / Interests: Women, Sports, War, Youth, Creative Documentary
Synopsis
Basketball, one of the oldest and most popular games among Somali women, is now an endangered sport. This highly visual, character-driven portrait of the Somali Women’s National Basketball Team takes viewers on an immersive journey from Mogadishu to the Somali diaspora communities of Minneapolis and Toronto. The ‘Nation’s Hope’ filmmakers were embedded within the team throughout its troubled 2016-2017 season, which is viewed through the eyes of coach Suad Galow and several Mogadishu-based players. The film illuminates the power of basketball, a once-beloved Somali national sport, to reunite and re-inspire a nation fractured by 27 years of civil war. In a country where strict gender roles and Islamic tenets increasingly restrict women’s rights, this team personifies the hopes and aspirations of generations of Somali women.
Credits
- Director
- Hana Mire
- Screenwriter
- Hana Mire
- Producer
- Andy Jones
- Production Company
- Radio Film TD
About the Director
Somali filmmaker Hana Mire studied at the New York Film Academy in Abu Dhabi. Her short documentary ‘Silent Art’ (2013) won an award at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival. Mire is currently a Chicken & Egg Pictures Diversity Initiative Fellow. She attended the Union Docs Summer Intensive programme in Brooklyn in 2016, and is currently participating in the Greenhouse Documentary Development Program. ‘Horseed’ is her first feature-length documentary.