Synopsis
On a cold December day, Magan (Barkhad Abdi), a pragmatic ride-share driver from Somalia, takes Jorani, an older woman from Cambodia with mild dementia back to her nursing home. The facility has, however, given up her bed and refuses to accept her back. Thus begins a day long odyssey where Magan must figure out what to do with Jorani and decide how far he will go to help her.
Key Personnel
DANA WHITE- Co-Director, Producer, Writer
CHRIS KNOBLOCK – Co-Director
Dana White is a writer, producer and director. She co-directs her films with partner Chris Knoblock. Dana and Chris are an award-winning filmmaking team. Their story is that of artists whose creative agenda reflects the stories of the quiet and forgotten subjects and voices in the world. Their inspirations gravitate to the areas of elder abuse, loss, grief, PTSD, trauma, and ageism. Their films have been screened all over the world at numerous festivals. Works include Magan’s Fare (the short), starring Barkhad Abdi and nominated for Best Live Action Short at The Raindance Film Festival, the feature film In the Orchard which won the Jury Award for Best Feature Film at the 2018 Sonoma International Film Festival, Involuntary starring Jack McGee which screened at festivals such as the 2023 The Justice Film Festival and the 2024 Cleveland International Film Festival, and Turning Blue, starring Kathleen Chalfant which premiered at the 2021 Cleveland International Film and went on to screen nationally and internationally and for which Dana won Best Writer of a Drama at the NYWIFT Awards and Best Female Filmmaker at the 2024 Global Drama Project. Dana is a proud Film Fatales and NYWIFT member. In 2023, Dana was awarded an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award. She was one of only six media artists in the state of Ohio to win this prestigious award.
In additions to all of his film collaborations with Dana, Chris Knoblock has had a successful career in film and TV as a director of photography and camera operator for multiple shows on NBC, CBS, National Geographic, Discovery, TLC, and the History Channel to name a few.
Dana and Chris are passionate about the art of film as an agent for change. Their focus is on creating films that stay with their audiences long after seeing them. Generating work that challenges an audience to see the world differently, understand and empathize with others in a new way, and encourage difficult and nuanced conversations about our responsibility to others are the driving forces in Dana and Chris’ films.
BARKHAD ABDI – MAGAN
Barkhad Abdi was born in Somalia and spent his early years there. When he was seven, his family moved to Yemen where he lived until he was fourteen. His mother applied and got a green card for herself and her family to move to the United States, which is when he landed in Minneapolis and has called that home ever since. When Captain Phillips was casting the roles of the Somali pirates, they had an open casting in his adoptive hometown. Barkhad was one of 700 young men who appeared for the audition, and after a long process, won the role of “Muse.” For his performance in the film, he was nominated for an Oscar, Golden Globe and SAG Award and won the BAFTA and London Critics’ awards. He has been working steadily ever since. He was seen in Eye in the Sky (starring Helen Mirren, Alan Rickman and Aaron Paul, directed by Oscar winner Gavin Hood), The Brothers Grimsby (starring Sacha Baron Cohen, directed by Louis Leterrier) and Extortion (starring Danny Glover and Eion Bailey, directed by Paul Volken). His most recently released films are The Pirates of Somalia (in which he stars with Evan Peters and Al Pacino, premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival), Good Time (starring with Robert Pattinson) and Blade Runner 2049 (opposite Ryan Gosling, directed by Denis Villeneuve), He can also be seen in Tyson’s Run, Agent Game (with Jason Isaacs), The Extraordinary Journey of the Fakir (directed by Ken Scott), A Girl from Mogadishu (directed by Mary McGuckian) and Beneath A Sea of Lights (directed by Neel Kumar). On streaming/television he starred in the Hulu series Castle Rock along with Tim Robbins and Lizzy Caplan and recurred in the series The Curse with Emma Stone on Showtime.
ALEXIS RHEE – JORANI
Alexis was born in South Korea and started learning the Violin when turned 5 years old. Even early as 3, everyone around her noticed her immediate reaction to any and all artistic endeavor. She ended up in New York City and received a Master of Music degree. She also appeared as an actress in the original Ridley Scott’s ‘Blade Runner’, Academy Award’s Best Movie ‘Crash’, ‘Black Panther’, etc. and for TV sitcoms, ‘Dr. Ken’, ‘The Michael Blackson Show’, ‘The Brothers Sun’(Netflix) as recurring characters, to name a few. She loves all forms of Creative art and dreaming about dreams!
