Ayaanle

In a windy Somali village, a newly assembled family must navigate between their different aspirations and the complex world surrounding them. Love, trust and resilience will power them through their life paths.

Somalia. A policewoman sits in her parked car. After a while, she gets out, puts on her service cap, and enters the prison. There, decisive hours have dawned for young Farah. Organizational machinery starts up around him. Farah is examined by a doctor, instructed by the bailiff, and looked after by an imam. Farah is waiting for his parents to visit. “How are you?” is the question everyone asks him that day. Each time, “Good” is his concise answer. Only when the policewoman takes Farah out of town the next morning does the unspeakable become a painful reality.

When men take up arms to go against their brothers, women have to take up gravediggers’ shovels. Ceebla (Fardouza Moussa Egueh, who we also saw in Gravedigger’s Wife), refuses to bargain for the cost of her labour. When her grave finally finds a taker, the revenue logic takes an unexpected twist. The Earth Has Ears is a civil war film without gunfire. It shows how the absurdity of war also turns everyday life at the home front irrational. / MSFF