Writer: Ursula Rani Sarma
Director: Anthony Wonke
It’s hard to imagine becoming a national champion at anything without you family finding out, but with the restrictions place on women within her Somali-Muslim community in London Ramla Ali has to become a British boxing champion in secret. Following many of the traditional sports movie tropes, Anthony Wonke’s film, In the Shadows, written by Ursula Rani Sarma screening at the BFI London Film Festival 2026, deepens them with an examination not only of the challenges within women’s sport but in overcoming deep-rooted family objections to achieving her dream.
Arriving in the UK as a refugee from Somalia, Ramla Ali is bullied at school before discovering a passion for boxing, much of which she learns from YouTube before convincing a gym to take her on. Keen to become an Olympic competitor, Ali’s difficult relationship with her coach slows her progress but refusing to beaten Ali fights on.
The two strands of Wonke’s film meld well together taking the characteristic triumph over adversity narrative and deepening the types of difficulty that Ali must face including the expectations of her faith and family whose religion is a core part of their daily lives, fearing the community reaction to any transgression. In a moment of foresight, her mother is asked at one point whether she could imagine her daughter being the talk of the town, little knowing that this will soon be the case but for quite different reasons.
The exploration of multi-heritage identity is also well managed as Ramla declares her Britishness early in the fill and dreams of competing for Team GB but equally feels the conflicting loyalties with her Somali identity explored in dramatic flashback and her Muslim faith which shapes the expectations placed on women. How these motivate character, particularly Ramla’s family are clear and lots of insistent all-too credible conversations ensue in which they try to convince her she is wrongheaded about what she wants. The theme adds weight to the determination to be different, to forge an identity and experience of her own. None of this is overtly laboured but helps to underpin the boxing narrative and explain Ramlas’ drive to succeed against everyone’s wishes and expectations for her.
There are some underdeveloped elements to the narrative, most notably Ali’s relationship with her coach who seems more than professionally interested in her but the film never articulates his coercive management of her career and his seeming jealousy of her relationship with a fellow trainer Richard (Finn Cole) – perhaps one of the limits of presenting real lives. Nonetheless, Jasmine Jobson’s powerful performance in the title role is full of strength of character, a determination that is typical of the sports film but is nicely rounded out by the more complex context that Jobson’s performance offers.
Not quite a knockout but the judges declare this another win for Ali.
In the Shadows is screening at the BFI London Film Festival 2026 from 7-18 October.
