Stories about a return to the homeland to seek fortune and happiness are familiar, but Golden Land manages to offer something generous and gently compassionate to the canon. While drama and darkness lurk in the background (and certainly have an influence on proceedings) the film is permeated with reflections on family and support as it tells the story of a Finnish family who return to Somaliland to follow their dreams.
The film delivers a heart-warming portrait of a family who, despite undercurrents of racism, has built their life in Finland, but decide to leave everything behind to develop their land back in the Horn of Africa.
It opens with Finnish–Somali Mustafe Hassan – who had arrived in Finland in 1991 as a child refugee – driving through the arid and rocky Somali landscape and stopping to examine the stony ground with a metal detector. He uncovers a tiny piece of gold.
He had received a call from his uncle in Somaliland (part of Somalia) telling him that a Chinese mining company had offered $500,000 for their family land. It turned out that the land was full of gold, copper and cobalt and was “a thousand times more valuable than what the Chinese offered.”
But delivering his family – wife Najah and four children Jasmin, Abdirahim, Intisar and Ikhlaar – from their comfortable Finnish home to Somaliland proves just as challenging as arranging for permission to mine the land.
As the youngsters drive to their new home from the airport they can’t quite believe the heat, the housing, lack of pavements and also the prospect of a home with no cold shower or television. Having to eat food with their fingers seems bizarre to them and Jasmin balks about the thought of wearing a hijab for school.
Mustafe faces his own challenges. Just as he arrived in Hargeisa, a rival clan (he is part of the Habr Yunis clan) won the election and formed a new government. In order to mine, he must reapply to the Ministry of Energy and Minerals for permits from the new government. And they are not keen – or at least very slow – in handing him the permits he needs.
Inka Achté’s carefully balanced film follows Mustafe as he struggles to gain this permission, spends time with Najah as she gently suggests to her sister that old customs are perhaps not always the best, while also focussing on the children (in particular Jasmin) as they try to adjust to a new life while longing to be back in Finland with their friends. Their story is interspersed with Mustafe recalling his experiences as a youngster in Finland, set alongside footage of anti-immigrant sentiment from archival television footage.
A lovely final sequence – set five months later – sees the family returning for a summer holiday trip to Finland. The children are excited to spot bus stops and traffic lights, and delightfully (and heart-warmingly) head to visit Paivi, the woman who was school nurse when Mustafe was a worried and alienated youngster and who he now calls his Finnish mother (and who his children call grandmother). Drama in Golden Land is modest and understated, but director Achté successfully delivers a gentle and warm story of a charming family trying to find the right life. These are rounded and supportive people who deserve to find happiness.
Finland-Sweden-Norway, 2022, 84mins
Dir Inka Achté
Production Napa Films
International sales CAT&Docs
Producer Liisa Karpo
Screenplay Inka Achté, Hanna Karppinen
Cinematography Jarkko M. Virtanen
Editor Magnus Svensson
Music Sander Stedenfeldt Olsen, Are Åberg, Jørgen Meyer
