Samia

Samia (2024) is a coming-of-age drama you can watch online on iFILM, following a girl from Mogadishu who runs faster than every boy on her block. She's nine when she figures it out, and she and her friend Ali — same age, her self-appointed coach — make a pact: he'll train her into a champion.

Their city is coming apart. Civil war tightens its grip, money runs short, and the rules say women aren't meant to compete at all. Samia keeps sprinting through cracked streets anyway, her father quietly in her corner, each lap a small act of defiance against everyone who wants her to stop.

Director Yasemin Samdereli, known for Almanya, draws on the real Somali runner who made it all the way to the Beijing Games, adapting Giuseppe Catozzella's novel. Cast with non-professional actors from the Somali diaspora, the film trades spectacle for a stubborn, low-key force; it's for anyone drawn to festival cinema about freedom and grit. Stream Samia (2024) online on iFILM.