The story told in Inka Achte’s Golden Land could launch a thousand thrillers. A man receives a call from his uncle concerning a group of Chinese investors who are offering half a million dollars for his ancestral land. It turns out that beneath the land are gems, which immediately suggests two options: sell to the Chinese for less than its worth or do the mining yourself. Handsomely shot by Jarkko M. Virtanen, the documentary will please festivals, fit in the curriculum of certain universities, and should end up spurring discussions in European homes with TVs.
Mustafe, the man who gets the phone call, lives in Finland and receives his uncle’s call from East Africa, which Mustafe fled as a child during one of the many wars that have plagued the Horn of Africa. An initial solo inspection proves that his ancestor’s land is indeed super-valuable and, months later, Mustafe arrives with his family. He quickly learns that nothing with so much money at stake is ever straightforward.
That lesson splits the Golden Land in two: Mustafe’s negotiations with the state, and his children’s navigation of a new place. The latter gives an insight into the ordinary differences between Finland and Somaliland; it also gives the project’s supporting character Jasmin, one of Mustafe’s daughters, an exquisite opportunity to shine. The filmmakers rightly elect her as the one child through whom mundane differences will be conveyed. These differences include personal stuff like the loss of friendship, although in keeping the film’s vibrantly optimistic approach, the focus is on Jasmin’s one friendship that abides. Then there is systemic stuff like education. The question of quality isn’t mentioned but Jasmin tells her mother about a teacher who strikes students. The kids change school shortly after and one of the telling comments made concerns the new school’s similarity with schools in Finland.
Because Jasmin is such good company—her eyes grow big with excitement and, perhaps, conscious of the camera, she offers a performance that is a mix of genuine and stylised—one wishes there was more time for these big differences writ small in the lives of the kids. But the filmmaker’s mammoth-sized political fish is out there in the mines with Mustafe whose go-to-market efforts are repeatedly frustrated by bureaucracy and clannishness.
He is able to raise $300,000 to begin work but money is not the problem. A much more fundamental issue of belonging to the group not in power leaves him adrift. And then he makes a statement that hints at some of the underlying problems in Somaliland and, frankly, across Africa. If he can’t mine the land his ancestors walked on and have owned for generations, he says, he would start a civil war. Before the scene with that comment, Mustafe appears to be a mild-mannered man on the cusp of a life-changing and potentially nation-advancing opportunity. He dotes on his kids, he learned Finnish to escape racial taunts in Finland, and he tells hyperbolic tales about his grandfather. But that statement of his forces a reconsideration. How far will this man go? As with some untoward figures in political history, he is propelled by the past: apparently, his grandfather had predicted a great future for him. And while It is never clear if he means what he has said, his wife does respond. “If you go to war, I will leave,” she says, while rubbing dye in his hair. “I’m not ready for that.”
It is perhaps an unintentional insight that while Mustafe’s wife has that option, an overwhelming number of people do not have the privilege of being able to take off from their countries, even when they have no direct connection to the instigators of violence. So that, for those familiar with war-torn countries, Mustafe’s statement might, at best, bring about a reflective pause. For others, Golden Land can be consumed as an entertaining story of one man’s attempt to claim a gift from the gods of his ancestors.
As said, Mustafe’s story could be a thriller. It even comes with a Hollywood ending. But way before that innocuous denouement, the tragic sub-theme of Africa has been broached.
Director: Inka Achté
Producer: Liisa Karpo
Screenplay: Inka Achté, Hanna Karppinen
Cinematographer: Jarkko M. Virtanen
Editor: Magnus Svensson
Production Company: Napa Films (Finland, Sweden, Norway)
Venue: Thessaloniki Documentary Festival (Newcomers Competition)
Duration: 84 minutes
