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Among the crowd in the National Theatre was
24-year-old Kaif Jama, the writer and star of both films on the
programme - the horror story "Hoos", about a single woman moving
into an empty house, and a not-so-romantic comedy called "Date
from Hell".
"This means something for everyone including me. This is for
every Somali who wants to make movies," Jama said, wearing a
traditional Somali dress striped silver, yellow and green.
She left Somalia when she was six and moved between Kenya and
Uganda before settling in Cairo aged 19.
Since then, she has made 60 short films and skits with Somali
filmmaker Ibrahim CM.
Somalis have spent years watching Indian and Arab films on their
televisions, she said. "But if our own movies come to cinema and
TVs then every single Somali person and child will be shaped and
influenced by their own culture."
The National Theatre, a gift from China's Mao Zedong, opened its
doors in 1967.
It became an important home for Somalia's rich storytelling
tradition, hosting plays, musical extravaganzas and, in the
1980s, pan-African film festivals.
After the overthrow of president Siad Barre in 1991, clan-based
warlords blasted each other with anti-aircraft guns and fought
over the theatre, which they used as a base. The building was
hit so many times that the roof collapsed a year into the
conflict.
Islamist militants who seized control in 2006 took over the
building. They banned all forms of public entertainment - from
concerts to football matches - that they considered sinful.
African Union peacekeeping troops clawed back control of the
capital in 2011 and the new Western-backed Somali government
reopened the venue the following year. But just three weeks
after that, a suicide bomber from the Islamist al Shabaab
insurgency struck during a ceremony, killing six people. The
building reopened again in 2020.
Mogadishu resident Hassan Abdulahi Mohamed remembered spending
half a Somali shilling on a movie ticket and one shilling on
snacks at the theatre in the 1960s.
"Last time I watched films in the cinema, it was 1991," he said.
(Reporting by Abdirahman Hussein; Writing by Ayenat Mersie;
Editing by Andrew Heavens)
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