Ethiopia's submission to this year's Academy Awards, director Jan Philipp Weyl's Running Against the Wind details
the friendship between a photographer (Mikiyas Wolde) and long distance runner (Ashenafi Nigusu), both of whom battle hardship to achieve their
professional dreams.
Running Against the Wind is on Amazon Prime Video UK and BFI
Player from June 11th, followed by a blu-ray release in August.
Check out the trailer and poster below.
The official synopsis reads:
Two twelve-year-old boys grow up together in a remote rural village. That is until a single photograph forever changes their lives. Solomon (Mikiyas Wolde) heads for Addis Ababa to become a photographer. Abdi (Ashenafi Nigusu) remains at home to train as a long-distance runner in the hope of emulating national sporting hero, the legendary Haile Gebreselassie. Ten years later, Abdi is nominated for the Ethiopian National running team and himself moves to the sprawling capital. He feels that Solomon may be lost to him, but an inner voice tells him to keep the flicker of hope alive and to search out his boyhood companion. In fact, Solomon is still living, but trapped in a world rife with crime, poverty and suffering. Abdi’s source of power is his running shoes, Solomon survives thanks to his wife Genet (Samrawit Desalegn), the love of his three-year-old daughter, and his abiding passion for photography.
