Charcoal Traffic

• The first fictional film produced in Somalia in over 15 years.
• Shot entirely on location
• Used an all local Somali cast and majority Somali crew.
• To date, selected for over 10 film festivals worldwide including Palm Springs (USA), Raindance (UK), Global Peace Film Festival (USA)

The film is inspired by real events. The film was the brainchild of Fatima Jabrill, an award-winning Somali environmental activist . Fatima Jibrell is the  co-founder of Sun Fire Cooking (sunfirecooking.com) and the recipient of the 2002 Goldman Environmental Prize for Africa, the most prestigious international environmental award.

Preview Trailer

You can see it on YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sf_ri_P2NQ

The story

Charcoal Traffic tells a story of conflict, family tragedy and environmental devastation that is threatening the very way of life of the Somali people, who have been successful as pastoralists for thousands of years.  A murderous cycle of destruction and conflict over charcoal production is the reality on the ground in Somalia. 

The vision

No one has had the vision, the daring, the expertise and the network of contacts to even dream of making such a film in pastoral Somalia. Until now.   

Charcoal Traffic was only possible because of two visionaries: Fatima Jibrell, who is an internationally known community organizer and environmentalist and Nathan Collett, an award-winning filmmaker based in Nairobi, Kenya.

Production notes

Charcoal Traffic was shot in northeast Somalia near Bosaso under quite challenging conditions. Hot Sun Films had to bring in all the required equipment from Kenya under stringent weight allowances of the humanitarian flights to Somalia.   

At one point during the filming, a Somali man suddenly drove up in a Toyota fourwheel drive Landcruiser and stopped the filming  because he thought the filmmakers were trying to take over his land. None of the Somalis in the cast or crew had ever been in a film before or done any acting and few spoke English. But they had a desire to see the story made.