At the inaugural Africa Film Fest Australia, Black boyhood is in the spotlight with Miski Omar's Warya

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Friday July 19, 2024

On the surface, Warya is just a story about the daily life of a young boy named Hamza (left) who loves Fanta — but it's so much more.(Supplied: Miski Omar)

"Every day I drink two Fantas … today I don't have enough money for my second Fanta, but I have until the end of the day to get it."

So declares spirited Somali 14-year-old Hamza at the beginning of Miski Omar's short film Warya, an endearing 13-minute mockumentary airing at the inaugural Africa Film Fest Australia on Dharug Country in Western Sydney this weekend.

Shot in a drought-affected village in western Somalia, which has no electricity or running water, Warya is a grainy, playful depiction of small-town Somali boyhood.

In Garlogoobe, population approximately 1,000, camels are plentiful, dust is everywhere, pristine kicks are everything, and Hamza has a new friend, Abdiraxman.

Hamza takes it upon himself to teach Abdiraxman about the three most important things in his world, in the matter-of-fact manner children universally possess: Fanta, Cristiano Ronaldo and chewing gum. In that order.

On the surface, Warya is 'just a story about the daily life of a young boy'

But with Hamza's charming musings, Omar aims to depict the universal grandiosity of the experience that is childhood — without centring whiteness.

"Whether you're in Somalia or Australia, each child has the same curiosity, dreams, aspirations and imagination," the Western Sydney-based filmmaker says.

"They all see themselves at the centre of their little, yet big, world.

"I really wanted to create a story — that's all Warya is — it's just a story, that follows the daily life of this young boy who loves Fanta and goes on a quest to find his second bottle of the day after someone steals it.

"He has big aspirations and thinks he's the king of the town and it was really fascinating to explore that against the backdrop of Garlogoobe (a character in itself), which is so different to Sydney, Australia, but then the experiences of someone like Hamza and someone in Sydney would not be dissimilar."

Garlogoobe is a character in itself in Warya.(Supplied: Miski Omar)

Omar's other credits include ABC iview's surrealist comedy-drama Westerners as part of the Fresh Blood initiative and the upcoming short film Button Pusher. She wrote and directed Warya during a four-month-long stay in Garlogoobe, the village her mother grew up in, in 2021.

"I went [to Somalia] not really thinking I was going to make a film," she says.

"I did have my camera with me because, similar to a lot of diaspora youth, I wanted to capture my first trip back home, but I only planned to document things."

But then she met the "extremely charismatic" young boy, Abdiqadir, who would become her Hamza.

"He just had a way of talking and telling stories that was so gripping and I was immediately like 'I need to have him in something'."

So Omar asked him there and then if he'd star in her movie, if she wrote one.

"And he was like, 'Yes, anything for you, anything!' — I think probably out of sympathy for the most part, because I was sick with malaria at the time, and bedridden," Omar laughs.

The story came together on the notes app of her phone

Omar had been keeping a list of things that took her interest or made her laugh during her first trip to her mother's village, which Omar herself hadn't previously been able to visit due to civil unrest.

"One of them was, when you go to the mosque you have to take off your shoes and there's a cupboard everyone puts their shoes in. But sometimes, I'd see people coming into the mosque with a plastic bag and praying next to it, and I soon realised all the plastic bags contained shoes that were expensive, which made me laugh."

A week after Omar had recovered from that bout of malaria, she'd finished the script, and filming started the next day.

In 2021, Omar says Garlogoobe was experiencing "the worst period of drought", with food and water scarce.(Supplied: Miski Omar)

"We shot it in one day. We had to; there was no way for me to charge my camera, and I'd been using it throughout the trip, so it was on its last legs.

"That meant it was kind of guerrilla filmmaking. We were running around the town, picking up kids and asking whoever wanted to be in it to come and be in it."

Omar didn't expect so many of the locals to agree to take part: "When I was in Garlogoobe, the town was experiencing the worst period of drought, food and water resources were scarce.

"Despite this, the kids still played the same, dreamt the same, and the people of the town wanted me to capture them in that light, to show people their culture and their lives."

Why there's a new festival amplifying the voices of African filmmakers

Omar's film is one of a bunch of short films and seven feature films showing at the inaugural Africa Film Fest Australia in Sydney from July 19 to 21.

Despite festival organisers saying the event aims to challenge stereotypes and address under-representation, co-festival director Mumbi Hinga says they have copped some flack.

"We've got a lot of positive responses regarding the festival, but unfortunately, we've also faced some negative reactions," she says.

"Especially with the funding that we've got from the government, [some people are] labelling us as parasites and thinking that having a film festival means we are refusing to integrate with Australian society."

Hinga says this is far from the case.

"We believe that as people get to know about [the] Africa Film Fest and Africans, they will see that this festival is actually championing diversity and inclusion, and really aligning with Australia's values of multiculturalism and social harmony."

She says the festival plays an important role: "Cinema has the remarkable ability to communicate some very complex ideas and emotions that may be difficult to express through words alone.

"And we believe with time, that many people with misconceptions will come to see the amazing things that can happen when communities come together."

Hinga is a filmmaker herself and also runs the Out of Africa International Film Festival in Kenya, where she's seen the impact of "telling stories that would otherwise not have been told".

The Africa Film Fest Australia's program traverses as much of the continent as possible, darting from North to South, East to West.

"Obviously, seven films cannot really tell the story for the whole of Africa, but we [can] try and highlight as many regions as possible."

The Africa Film Fest Australia runs from July 19 to 21 in Sydney.

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