Naima Mohamud Explains Why Finland Needs a Film Like ‘Halima’: ‘It Was a Long Time Coming’ (EXCLUSIVE)

Finnish Film Affair winner, produced by It’s Alive Films, No-Office Films and Vico Films, debuts first-look stills

By Marta Balaga

Marta Balaga

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Finnish-Somali director Naima Mohamud’s debut feature, “Halima,” was named Best Fiction Project at the Finnish Film Affair.

It’s not the first award for the film, which has consistently generated buzz also outside of the country. But it’s the first Finnish feature film directed by a Black woman.

Produced by It’s Alive Films, No-Office Films and Vico Films and currently in post-production, it’s set in 1998 in Finland. Halima is a 10-year-old imaginative Somali girl who’s obsessed with Leonardo DiCaprio and Aqua (the band behind hit “Barbie Girl”), and wants nothing more than to be a pop star. The only trouble is, her family is always on the move, she has never had a friend and her mom refuses to talk about her dad.

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