BY KAREN BOSSICK
The movie “A Girl From Mogadishu” is being provided for people to watch free of charge through the next few days.
The film is one of those being shown in the Family of Woman Film Festival.
The festival is under contract to show single screenings of its other films but received special permission to let people view this one at any time over the next few days, as is convenient for them.
To watch it, go to https://www.comlib.org/event/fwff-a-girl-from-mogadishu/ Once registered, you must watch it within 48 hours.
The 113-minute drama from Somalia and the Republic of Ireland is based on a true story. It follows Ifrah Ahmed’s perilous journey as a refugee. Forced to marry as a teenager, she flees her abusive marriage and makes her way home in the midst of civil war to try to reconcile with her family.
The audience will experience the terror of bombs falling and chaos just as Ifrah does and rejoice when she exercises the potential buried inside her to lead a fight to protect women.
Two other films in this year’s film festival will air on The Community Library’s Livestream page at https://livestream.com/comlib.
- Saturday, Sept. 12, 4 p.m. “The Perfect Candidate,” a 104-minute dramatic comedy from Saudi Arabia.
The film features Haifaa al-Monsour, Saudi Arabia’s first female director who burst into world view with her film “Wadjda” about a young Saudi girl who becomes a student of the Koran to win a bicycle in a contest.
“The Perfect Candidate” features a young Saudi doctor who runs for city council to get the unpaved, rutted, constantly flooded street near her clinic fixed. She is assisted by the grandson of a crotchety old man who insists on being examined by a real—i.e., male—doctor, and who remains a thorn in her side until he admits he voted for her.
- Sunday, Sept. 12, 4 p.m. “The King of Masks, a 91-minute drama from China.
This film revolves around Wang, the King of Masks, an elderly street performer who enchants audiences with the complicated art of face-changing during the 1930s, a time of political turmoil in the Sichuan province.
Illustrating Chinese folk tales by split-second changes of masks is an art traditionally passed on to a son or grandson, but Wang has no heir. To compensate, Wang buys an orphan boy at an illegal child market but soon learns his new apprentice is a girl and sends her way away.
When she refuses to leave, she surprises him by performing street acrobatics to draw a crowd but he still refuses to relent. When she accidentally sets the sampan on which they live on fire, she runs away, then compounds her mistake by rescuing a kidnapped boy and taking him to Wang. But—whoops!-- Wang is arrested as a kidnapper and scheduled to be executed.
The short documentary “Akashinga” from Zimbabwe will show just prior to “The King of Masks.”