Follows the story of Samira Hashi, a 21-year-old model, as she revisits her birthplace, Mogadishu, the most dangerous ci | dG1fcWdSTUw1c3hBdGc
Category
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Short filmTranscript
00:00 (dramatic music)
00:02 It's Samira's second day in Mogadishu,
00:06 and despite the danger,
00:08 she's still keen to see more of the city she was born in.
00:11 But to do so, she's risking her life,
00:14 and all precautions are taken.
00:16 - That's probably about right.
00:17 Okay?
00:18 (dramatic music)
00:29 - For the troops, it's a routine tour of the city,
00:31 but for Samira, it's stepping into the abyss.
00:34 - Let's get some more guys.
00:37 Stick with what these guys say,
00:39 yeah, or what I say.
00:40 Don't worry, we've got the gaps up top.
00:44 (woman vocalizing)
00:56 - The destruction is worse than Samira expected.
00:59 The city has been reduced to a pile
01:02 of machine gun chewed bricks, ripped apart by violence.
01:05 The killing goes on.
01:08 Suicide bombs, RPGs, beheadings, medieval style stonings,
01:13 all are commonplace in this city of terror.
01:17 - These things are extremely brave.
01:20 It's just so easy, I'll break it up.
01:25 - Like Samira's family, most people have run from the city,
01:30 but Samira wants to find out what it's like
01:32 for those from her generation left behind.
01:35 (dramatic music)
01:39 (car engine revving)
01:42 - Even though it looks absolutely devastating now,
01:59 I can imagine what this could look like.
02:07 - Before the war, Mogadishu was known
02:09 for its classical Italian architecture
02:12 and its sandy beaches.
02:13 Idyllically set on the Indian Ocean,
02:20 Mogadishu was once full of holiday makers.
02:23 - So this hotel, when it was working as a hotel,
02:33 down there it was nightclub.
02:35 - Really?
02:35 - Yeah.
02:36 - For reasons of civil war, you see it's been destroyed.
02:39 - Samira has come to meet Abdi, a 29-year-old translator.
02:43 He has spent his whole life in Mogadishu
02:46 and is part of the lost generation of Somalis.
02:48 - It's not so good to survive here.
02:50 Morning when you wake up and go to town,
02:54 maybe you are not sure that you will come back.
02:57 Maybe someone may deem to kill you without reason.
03:02 - How has the war affected you?
03:06 - For me?
03:07 - Yeah.
03:08 - I like to be a doctor, but it's fortunate.
03:11 I didn't get that chance for sake of war.
03:15 I'm still sad when I'm talking about Somalia.
03:19 I lost my life, I lost my future.
03:24 There's nothing I have at all.
03:28 I think that I'm already dead.
03:34 This country is too beautiful to waste.
03:36 It's too beautiful to just say this is it.
03:40 - Samira had hoped to visit the house she was born in,
03:50 but has been told it's too dangerous.
03:52 Instead, she gets a chance to go to the ruins
04:00 of a football stadium.
04:02 (train rumbling)
04:04 To meet Shukri, born in the same year, the same month,
04:08 and in the same district as Samira.
04:10 - Samira.
04:11 - Samira.
04:12 (speaking in foreign language)
04:15 - How's life been here?
04:17 (speaking in foreign language)
04:18 - But it's hard.
04:19 (laughing)
04:20 (speaking in foreign language)
04:24 (laughing)
04:30 - She said, "Take me now, take me to London."
04:33 - Samira has always wondered how her life might have been
04:38 if she'd stayed in Mogadishu.
04:40 And talking to Shukri gives her a chance to find out.
04:43 (speaking in foreign language)
04:47 For girls of the same age, their lives are poles apart.
04:55 Samira has just started her modeling career,
04:58 while Shukri was married at 15
05:00 and had her first child a year later.
05:02 But it's Shukri's experience of war
05:05 that Samira finds difficult to come to terms with.
05:08 How many children?
05:10 (speaking in foreign language)
05:15 (speaking in foreign language)
05:18 (speaking in foreign language)
05:22 - I can't.
05:48 Why did they do this?
05:50 - Arms.
05:53 Arms.
05:56 Arms, I've got it.
06:00 - The thought that actually this is how my life would be
06:06 if me and my family stayed,
06:08 or whether I would be alive or dead,
06:12 I don't really know.
06:15 I feel very frustrated and angry
06:17 that nobody's stopping this torture and suffering.
06:21 Oh, gosh.
06:27 - Samira has just got back into the compound
06:33 when some news comes in.
06:35 There's been a skirmish at the stadium.
06:37 - The stadium's just been hit.
06:40 - Where we were?
06:41 Are you serious?
06:44 The stadium that we were just at has been hit?
06:47 - Tons.
06:48 20 minutes after the attack.
06:51 - Oh, my gosh.
06:52 What about Shukri?
06:55 She came?
06:56 [BLANK_AUDIO]