Guled and Nasra are a loving couple, living in the outskirts of Djibouti city with their teenage son, Mahad. They are facing difficult times: Nasra urgently needs expensive surgery to treat a chronic kidney disease. Guled is already working hard as a gravedigger to make ends meet: how can they find the money to save Nasra and keep the family together?
Mogadishu-born Finnish filmmaker Khadar Ayderus Ahmed makes his feature debut with The Gravedigger’s Wife, which premiered in competition in Critics’ Week at Cannes Film Festival 2021.
The 18:30 screening on Thu 3 Nov will be preceded by a performance from Elmi Ali.
Elmi Ali is a storyteller invested in the mediums of writing, directing, facilitating, translating, performance and education. Based in the North West of England, he writes poetry, short fiction, and for the stage. He has a degree in English Literature and Creative Writing and a masters in Contemporary Literature, Film and Theory from Manchester Metropolitan University. He is interested in the intersection between Language, Form, Translation and the ideas around Creative Resistance with regards to the contemporary notions of Global Coloniality in the late-stage capitalist era.
Elmi’s latest written and directed work includes Survival, Royal Exchange Co-lab festival 2017, Water Seeds not Stones, a one-man show, part of Contact Flying Solo Festival 2017/Contact in the City 2018, Said the Seismograph about the Tremor which was scratched as part of HOME theatre’s Push Festival 2018, and Snow White Privilege, an alternative pantomime for the Nia Centre Manchester 2020. Elmi also curated the See My Dunya 2018/2019 program and exhibition centering the stories of the Somali Diaspora in Manchester. Currently Elmi is working on No’Man, a long fiction work exploring masculinity and the nature of work in the 21st Century.