Race to get academy award hopefuls to LA

IT WAS a scramble to get passports, visas, lodging and flights to Los Angeles for two young brothers from Somalia living in Cape Town for the Academy Awards last night.

Harun Mohamed, 14, and Ali Mohamed, 12, played the lead role in a locally produced film Asad, up for an Oscar for best short film. Another South African movie up for an Oscar was the documentary Searching for Sugarman.

Asad is set in a war-torn fishing village in Somalia and follows a 12-year-old boy who must decide between the life of a pirate or becoming an honest fisherman. Because of the war in Somalia it was shot on location in Paternoster.

Wesgro chief executive Nils Flaatten and officials from Home Affairs and the US consulate rushed to arrange documentation.

“We started this process six weeks ago when we first had to extend the refugee status of the two brothers. A week later we organised passports with the Department of Home Affairs, who was very helpful and proactive. On Thursday their passports and visas were granted by the South African government,” Flaatten said.

The brothers, who shared a flat in Bellville with 15 other family members and other refugees, departed for the US at the weekend to join American film-makers Brian Buckley and Mino Jarjoura for the Oscars.

Asad is inspired by a UN short documentary, No Autographs.

The boys who had never attended school have received private tuition and enrolled in a home school system in South Africa before the production of the movie.

The movie was produced by South African Rafiq Samsodien.

Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu has praised the movie. He said parts of the movie were a painful reminder of the xenophobia that “shamefully” still existed.

“It is also a heart-warming tribute to our special ability, as members of the human family, to heal ourselves. The young Somali actors are also real-life stars in an inspirational South African story about hope and reconciliation,” Tutu said.