Mama Shamsa
Rising from the slums
Some people change their community through power. Mama Shamsa did it through love.
Shamsa Abubakar Fadhil – known to everyone who knows her as Mama Shamsa – is a Kenyan peace mediator who has spent her life guiding young people away from violence and toward something better. Not through policy or programme. Through presence. Through an unwavering belief that every young person deserves someone in their corner.
We were asked to make a film about her for the 2023 Zayed Award for Human Fraternity. What we found was something that couldn’t be explained. Only shown.
The film is an intimate portrait of one woman and the community she has quietly transformed. We didn’t try to tell her story. We tried to get out of the way of it.
It won a Silver Dolphin at the Cannes Dolphin Awards 2024. But the real measure was simpler than that – the people who watched it and felt, for a moment, like they knew her.
Credits
Client
Zayed Award for Human Fraternity
Creative Director
Tim Elliott
Film Co-Director and DOP
Kieran Hodges
Co-Director
Matthew Farman
Editor
Etem Ozyay