Somalia / USA

Ladan Osman is the author of Exiles of Eden, winner of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and The Kitchen-Dweller's Testimony, winner of the Sillerman Prize. She's the director of The Ascendants, a short documentary series featuring young women artists. She was the writer for Sun of the Soil (dir. Joe Penney), a documentary on the complicated legacy of Malian emperor, Mansa Musa. It was selected for inclusion in the New York African Film Festival, and the Cannes International PanAfrican Film Festival where it won a Dikalo Award. Her first short film (co-directed), Sam Underground (2018), profiled Samantha Diaz, a teenage busker who would become the 2020 American Idol. She lives in Brooklyn.

Filmography

Sam Underground (2018)
The Ascendants (2020)
A Reading From Exiles of Eden: Refusing Eurydice (2021)