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Bristol,
UK, July 25, 2009 – Young filmmakers from Bristol schools are preparing
to showcase the first Somali film made in England.
A team of students from The City Academy and Whitehall Primary School
worked with film professionals to script, produce and direct the horror
film Dhag Dheer, a revamp of an old Somali folk tale.
The 10-minute film will be premiered at Bristol's Watershed.
The academy is hoping the film will win awards when it is entered in
several national and international youth film festivals.
Dhag Dheer is a female character who features in many traditional Somali
stories as a cannibal witch with a gigantic ear who enjoys feasting on
her victims.
In the film adapted by the students, a frustrated wife, Qutubai, and her
son Khalif are driven out of their home by a scheming second wife
favoured by Qutubai's husband, Mustafa. When they wander into Dhag
Dheer's house, they have no idea what awaits them.
Pupils from Whitehall Primary School were also involved in the
production and as actors.
Six-year-old Aden Osman, from Bannerman Road School, was chosen to star
in the film alongside professional adult actors.
The film was mainly shot at Blaise Castle in Henbury using the woods and
the fairytale-like woodman's cottage as a witch's hut.
Source: This is Bristol, July 14, 2009
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