Cinema Africa 24/25: A Conversation with Mo Harawe, director of "The Village next to Paradise"
Abstract
- Abstract
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In this interview, director Mo Harawe discusses his debut feature film "The Village Next to Paradise", presented at the Cinema Africa Festival 2024–2025 in Bayreuth.
In conversation with Prof. Dr. Ute Fendler, organiser and curator of the festival, Harawe reflects on the film’s portrayal of family life in a rural Somali village shaped by economic hardship, environmental pressures and the lingering effects of conflict. He also discusses his approach to storytelling, his use of non-professional actors, and his intention to foreground everyday experiences beyond dominant narratives.
The interview was recorded as part of the 16th edition of the Cinema Africa Festival, organised by the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence at the University of Bayreuth.
People & roles
Origins & context
- Title
- Cinema Africa 24/25: A Conversation with Mo Harawe, director of "The Village next to Paradise"
- Language
- English
- YouTube playlist
- Cinema Africa 2024/25
- Date
- March 29, 2026
Identifiers & sources
Full text
- Transcript
- yeah good afternoon Mr Moi welcome to B I'm very happy and honored as well that you found time to come to bid in between a very busy schedule and very big festivals for the last couple of months um we will screen the film uh Village next to Paradise this evening in in bid so we would be happy to learn more about about about your your career how how did you come about to to make films maybe we could start with that well uh thank you very much and I'm happy also to be here uh and I'm looking forward to the screening in the evening of the film um I think uh how I come to films is uh I would say it it is more it's an accident more than more than more than a plan because I I even when I was a teenager I didn't like I wasn't planning to make films you know um it just happened that I was in Austria and um like I came I was born in Somalia I grew up there until I was almost 18 and then I came to Austria and in hindsight I think uh it's because I um I didn't know the language and I and I had something to say in a way and I wanted to express myself and uh since I watched a lot of films when I was uh or I used to watch film when I was child and young maybe um that Medium was the only one that I could identify and I could maybe tell U tell something um and uh since visual language is a very Universal language uh um I think it's a theory you know so I think maybe because of that that's why I I I I started making films you know so and and the rest was um literally um you know just happened you know there's no moment where I thought like I have to be a filmmaker or I would be a filmaker yeah I mean that it's great if an ex an accient an accident can bring you to such a big success that you had with your feature film that's fantastic congratulations thank you but you had a number of short films before this uh feature film and so maybe you can say a little tell us a little bit more about those short films yeah I've I've done few short films some of them in Austria some of them in… Read the full text about 6,346 words
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