Interviews

Interview: Khadar Ayderus Ahmed – The Gravedigger’s Wife

Published on September 16, 2021

Making a moral complicated medley on death being at someone’s doorstep…and footsteps, with his feature debut film, Somalia-born, Finnish filmmaker Khadar Ayderus Ahmed proposes a portrait of love being confronted by indignation and injustice while constructing a text that side-steps empathy for what turns out to be a more accurate denouement. A project that was workshopped at the 2015 edition of La Résidence of the Festival de Cannes, Ahmed brings his already down and out but not entirely hopeless Yusuf (instantly likeable Omar Abdi) to the breaking point. It’ll take more than a shovel to get out of this crater-sized dilemma.

Selected for the competition section in the Critics’ Week in Cannes (was also selected as Somalia’s Oscar hopeful), The Gravedigger’s Wife arrives at TIFF for a prestige international premiere and where I got a chance to sit down with the filmmaker to discuss the character’s DNA, working with his lead actor and the overall evolution of the project.

Eric Lavallée

Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).