Sirta Ereyga (The Secret of the Word)

Curated by Idel Rasheed

Mr. Ambassador
Waseem Ibrahim, United States 2024, 7 min. English, Somali with English subtitles

The Village next to Paradise
Mo Harawe, Germany, France, Austria, Somalia 2024, 133 min. Somali with English subtitles

This program begins with Waseem Ibrahim’s documentary short Mr. Ambassador, a poignant tribute to Osman, a DJ and filmmaker from the analog era. Before digital immediacy, Osman’s world was built on magnetic tape and the "frequency of a dream" that never stopped playing. This intimate exploration of memory and sacrifice sets the stage for Mo Harawe’s feature, The Village Next to Paradise, which offers a visually striking portrait of a Somali family navigating daily survival and the quiet threat of drone warfare.

Together, these films create a dialogue on how identity survives through both personal archives and collective tenacity. In an age of rapid displacement and digital noise, these works remind us that cinema remains a vital sanctuary for the soul’s persistence and the enduring power of the human spirit. (Idel Rasheed)

Idel Rasheed is a Berlin-based archivist, curator and founder of Waaberi Phone, a digital platform and archive dedicated to the preservation of Somali arts and culture. Her work is rooted in cultural memory and archival research, utilizing archival imagery, and sound to explore the continuity of Somali identity across generations. She is also a co-founder of Koor Archives, a platform focused on the retrieval and restitution of Somali materials.