Hungry Man, BCDF Pictures, Kalahari Pictures bring to you Where the White Man Runs Away, based on the book The Pirates of Somalia by Jay Bahadur. The film stars Evan Peters, Al Pacino and Melanie Griffith and Oscar nominee Barkhad Abdi (Captain Phillips). The screenplay was written by Bryan Buckley.

Deadline reported late last year that the film “tells the story of rookie Canadian journalist Bahadur, who in 2008 formed a half-baked plan to embed himself among the pirates of Somalia. He ultimately succeeded in providing the first close-up look into who these men are, how they live, and the forces that drive them”. Movieinsider gives the film a pre-production status while Deadline and IMDB mention South Africa as a shooting location.

The Hollywood Reporter covered the casting of Where the White Man Runs Away in February, stating that Abdi “won’t be playing a bandit of the African high seas this time. Instead, he will portray the translator who helps Bahadur navigate Somalia. Pacino plays “Seymour Toobin, a fictitious Vietnam War correspondent whose passion for telling the uncensored truth exceeds the battlefield”.

It should be noted that contrary to Movieinsider, IMDb gives this movie a post- production status but mentions no release date.

Abdi received Oscar and Golden Globe nominations and took home a BAFTA award for his screen debut in Paul Greengrass‘ 2013 thriller Captain Phillips ably commanding the screen opposite Tom Hanks. This year, he appeared in The Brothers Grimsby and can currently be seen in the arthouse hit Eye in the Sky.