My brother Ali
SYNOPSIS
An extraordinary story of friendship over the course of twelve years, in which Spanish filmmaker Paula Palacios has followed Ali, a young man who fled the war in Somalia at the age of fourteen. Their encounter in a Ukrainian prison in 2012 triggers a turning point in Ali’s life. Filmed in Ukraine, USA, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Spain, often by Ali himself, My Brother Ali is a story about personal growth in a hostile world, as Ali, trying to fulfil ‘the American dream’, questions his fate and sets out in search of a new tribe.
TECHNICAL INFO
Título original: MI HERMANO ALI
Título en inglés: MY BROTHER ALI
Idiomas: Inglés, español, ruso, somalí
Lugares de rodaje: Ucrania, EE.UU., Catar, Arabia Saudí, España
Duración: 85’ 22’’
Una coproducción España-Portugal
Productoras: MORADA FILMS (España) SERENA PRODUCTIONS (Portugal)
Guión y dirección: Paula Palacios
Con Ali Ahmed Warsame y Paula Palacios
Producida por: Paula Palacios
Coproducida por: Elsa Cornevin, Manuel Bouloy
Producción ejecutiva: Paula Palacios, Christoph Jörg, Carlo D’Ursi
Dirección de fotografía: Marc Galver Lacruz, José Luis Salomón, Paula Palacios
Montaje: María Macías, Virginie Véricourt, Paula Palacios
Música original: Anne Victorino D’Almeida
Canción incluida en la banda sonora
“UN LARGO VIAJE ” featuring Rosalia
Compositor Fernando Vacas. “A TRAVÉS DE LA LUZ. UNA ÓPERA FLAMENCA”
Con la financiación del Gobierno de España. Instituto de la Cinematografía y de
las Artes Audiovisuales (ICAA)
Participación de televisiones: RTVE, Aljazeera Documentary Channel
Con la participación de: Ayuntamiento de Madrid
Premios en fase de producción:
Premio IDA / NETFLIX Directora Emergente Global
Premio Mejor Documental Ventana CineMad
Premio Music Library & SFX – Docs Barcelona Rough Cut Pitch
Proyecto seleccionado en CIMA Impulsa
Cannes Docs Spotlighted projects
Proyecto seleccionado en Abycine Lanza WIP
IMAGES
MY BROTHER ALI traces a seven-year period in the life of Ali, a 21-year-old Somalian refugee. Director Paula Palacios not only followed Ali with her camera since 2011, but actively tried to help him resettle and rebuild his life. Now Ali, who hasn’t seen his family for seven years is organising a trip to Kenya to visit his family and has invited Palacios to film him.
MY BROTHER ALI is an intimate film about one young refugee that delves deep into the complexities of the global refugee crises and our individual and societal responsibility through the lens of a documentary filmmaker and her subject.
Ali left Somalia illegally when he was 13 to find a better life in Europe. He ended up “in transit”, as he says, in Ukraine for three full years. He spent most of the time there in a detention center because he tried twice to cross the border and enter into the European Union.
In December 2013, Ali was accepted to travel legally to the US as part of a UN resettlement program. He now lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan and is about to get his first job as an Uber driver.
Ali has dreamt of reuniting with his family for years, but now he is finally making plans to do so towards the end of 2018. He is determined to make this trip, even in the face of his possible inability to re-enter the USA. Donald Trump’s travel ban includes Somalia and although Ali is legal now, he could face issues at the US border as well as a possible deportation at times of rapid policy changes.
