Mo & Me Wins Silver Screen Award At US International Film Festival

Directed by Roger Mills (“Himalaya”, “Around the World in 80 Days”) and Murad Rayani (“Refusing To Die”) and narrated by Salim Amin, Mo & Me took the runner-up documentary prize at this year’s Awards Competition held in Redondo Beach. Now in its fortieth year, the US International Film and Video Festival attracted over 1250 entries from 26 countries to its 2006 edition.

Mo & Me’s USIFVF win follows a series of well-received and widely reported festival screenings in Los Angeles, Paris and New York of the 95-minute film which had its official World Premiere in Nairobi on Wednesday.

The unflinching and deeply personal work by Salim Amin depicts his father’s unbending, unforgiving and unapologetically rambunctious life amid the turmoil of Africa’s passage through the twentieth century.

Underpinned by the extraordinary images from Mohamed Amin’s vast archive which is currently available at World Picture Network in New York, the man’s vivid life swirls and swoops across the screen while remaining ever-close to the brink.

In Amin, viewers see the potent mixture of talent and ambition personified. Then, as the documentary unfolds, they are left in no doubt about his immense courage and resilience as he survives incarceration, torture and, later, amputation as part of his tireless quest to observe and inform.

Commenting from Nairobi on his USIFVF award, filmmaker Salim Amin said:

“I am absolutely delighted that Mo & Me has been honored with the Silver Screen Award by the US International Film and Video Festival. On behalf of my team at Camerapix here in Nairobi and our production partners at Al-Jazeera International, I thank the festival jury for coming along with us on the journey into the life of Mohamed Amin.”

“For my father, it was never simply a case of getting the job done. Time and again, he pushed himself to new limits because he knew that his lens was a lone voice speaking for many, many more.”

CONTACT: Sam Garrick of Quantock, +1-347-284-6614, press@quantockltd.com for Salim Amin / Camerapix.