by Murtada
You know who might be having a big 2017 in film? Barkhad Abdi. He has three interesting projects coming out, starting with Dabka which will play this month at the Tribeca Film Festival. Written and directed by Bryan Buckley (The Bronze) it’s the true story of a reporter’s risk-taking adventure that gave him an unprecedented first-person account of the pirates of Somalia. Evan Peters plays the reporter Jay Bahadur on whose best selling book, The Pirates of Somalia: Inside Their Hidden World, the film is based. Abdi plays a local fixer who helped Bahadur embed himself with the Somali pirates. So he hasn’t gone very far from the world of his Oscar nominated performance in Captain Phillips (2013).
with Evan Peters in Dabka
However Blade Runner 2049 could not be further away from his most famous role...
He told THR last week that he plays a “totally deformed” scientist who’s entangled with Ryan Gosling’s Officer Q in Denis Villeneuve's sequel, set to be released in October. Abdi said that he doesn’t feel the iconic weight of Ridley Scott’s 1982 original Blade Runner.
It’s not pressure, it’s a blessing. But for me, I do everything that I do to the full extent like it’s the last one. I feel an obligation to [surpass] Captain Phillips — that's my goal.
He’ll get another chance to try and surpass that film, next month at Cannes. Abdi is in the Safdie Brothers competition bound Good Time alongside Robert Pattinson, Jennifer Jason Leigh and one of the film’s directors, Benny Safdie. Pattinson and Safdie play bank robber brothers on the run for their lives. No information yet on who Abdi plays.
Pattinson in the first image from Good Time
Tribeca, Cannes and a potential blockbuster? Sounds like a fantastic year ahead for Abdi.