When Warda Mohamed posted a message on social media that she had completed her feature film script, she never expected it to change her career. “I genuinely thought it was just going to be a few people saying, ‘Oh my God, well done’,” she says. “I posted it at nine o’clock at night and thought nothing of it.” By morning, a commissioner at BBC Film had reached out, setting the wheels in motion for what would become Muna – an 18-minute short film that screened at more than 60 international film festivals, won multiple awards, and has now made its way to BBC iPlayer.
Muna tells the story of a British-Somali teenager, played by Kosar Ali (Bafta-nominated for Rocks), who navigates a complex mother-daughter relationship while mourning a grandfather she never met. Her grief mirrors Mohamed’s own experience growing up. “There isn’t an answer to [grief],” Mohamed says. “You have to feel it as you go along.” Ali, with her deep connection to the story, was instinctively drawn to the role: “When I approach Somali stories, it’s always a yes before a no because there are so few,” she says.
