Ramla Ali fled Somalia's civil war and fought at the Tokyo Olympics. Now Top Boy's Jasmine Jobson plays her in the film In the Shadows.
A girl who fled Somalia's civil war is now the hero of her own feature film. Somali-British boxer Ramla Ali has seen her journey from refugee to Olympian turned into In the Shadows, a biopic that celebrates the resilience of the African diaspora and is being framed as a positive migrant story.
Ali arrived at the London premiere in a showstopping dress with a huge skirt of cascading black feathers. She introduced the screening herself, and her phone lit up with messages from Bear Grylls and Malala Yousafzai, both of whom were in the audience. But the opinion that mattered most was her mother's. She was watching the film for the fourth time, and according to Ali, "She loves it."
Directed by Anthony Wonke, the film follows Ali's road to the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo. Jasmine Jobson, known for her role in Top Boy, plays the boxer. It is a high-profile casting for a story that has already crossed continents, from Somalia to Britain to the biggest stage in world sport.
Loss runs through Ali's story as well. She has said that her life would be very different if her brother had not died, a reminder that the glamour of a premiere night rests on years of hardship and perseverance.
For young African and diaspora athletes, Ali's story shows what is possible when talent meets grit, and now it has a cinema release to carry it further.
