The ‘90s are back – also in Naima Mohamud’s upcoming “Halima,” produced by Finland’s It’s Alive Films , behind Oscar entry “Euthanizer,” and No-Office Films. “It was a wild time. The hair! The clothes ! I really wanted to go back to when boybands, Tamagotchis and popper pants were all the rage.
And Aqua, the greatest ‘90s pop band in the world, [behind] ‘Barbie Girl’!” enthused the director, who used to be “obsessed” with its singer Lene Nystrøm. “I tried cutting my own bangs and dyeing my hair with food coloring to rock her hairstyle. It didn’t work, of course, and the following months were agony.
I got told off for wasting food coloring my mother needed to make Somali dessert halwa .” In Mohamud’s partly autobiographical “down-to-earth dramedy about loneliness, childhood and conquering your fears” – currently in development and eyeing a 2025 shoot – it will be Halima’s turn to experience such “heartwarming and humorous” misadventures. A 10-year-old Somali girl, she loves dancing, pop music and Leonardo DiCaprio.
But her family, now based in Finland, moves so often she is struggling to make friends. Until she meets new classmate, Erika. “Growing up Muslim and African in an often literally winter-white Finnish small town wasn’t easy – we stuck out like a pride of lions in a parking lot,” recalled Mohamud.
The film will also deal with some “heavier” events her family has experienced, such as loneliness, displac.