The Gravedigger's Wife

Somalia’s first ever Oscar submission! Guled makes a living as a gravedigger in Djibouti, and a normal day on the job for him consists of waiting outside the hospital gates for dead bodies to be sent out to be buried. Illness and death are far from abstract concepts to Guled, but when his wife Nasra becomes seriously ill his world is turned upside down. He needs to get the money to pay for her medical treatment, and waiting for others to die so he can bury them is simply too slow. He must think outside the box and step outside of his comfort zone in order to find a solution.

In addition to being one of a very few feature films with Somali as its main language, The Gravedigger’s Wife is memorable because of its almost hypnotic cinematography, and as a poetic film romance.

Finnish-Somali director Khadar Ayderus Ahmed wrote the first draft of the script for this film more than ten years ago. However, he was reluctant to let anyone else direct his story – so he spent the following years learning how to direct films, and production finally started in 2019. This debut feature premiered as part of the International Critics’ Week at Cannes, and has since been screened at Toronto International Film Festival.

Helene Aalborg

Director

Khadar Ayderus Ahmed (f. 1981) er en manusforfatter og regissør fra Mogadishu i Somalia, som flyktet til Finland sammen med familien som tenåring. Han har skrevet manus for tv og flere kortfilmer i Finland. Guled & Nasra er hans debut som spillefilmregissør.

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