MARIYAM AZZA: BECOMING KAN’BULO
As a screenwriter, you live inside your characters long before anyone else does. You know their breath, their silences, their breaking points. You hear their words before they’re spoken — and sometimes, you wonder if any actor can truly become what you’ve imagined.
But then—fresh off two back-to-back blockbusters—superstar Mariyam Azza steps into the skin of Kan’bulo. The rest, as they say, is history.
Having just watched a rough cut of Kan’bulo, I’m still struggling to find words that match what I witnessed. Azza doesn’t just play Kan’bulo — she becomes her. Frame after frame, she dissolves into this underage girl confronting unthinkable suffering far beyond her years. It’s not just a performance — it’s a haunting possession of pain, fear, shame, defiance, and above all… truth.
From the first page of the script, I knew this character demanded an actor who could navigate delicate psychological territory with absolute control. There were moments with no dialogue, only silence and stillness — and Azza delivered them with quiet ferocity. Every micro-expression — a quiver in the jaw, a distant gaze, the way her shoulders drop when no one’s looking — landed exactly where I wrote it… and often, better than I wrote it.
She doesn’t overplay trauma. She doesn’t seek your sympathy. Instead, she does what great actors do — she makes you feel everything without asking for your permission.
What Azza achieves in Kan’bulo is an evolution from her phenomenal performance in Kamanaa. That film showed her range. Kan’bulo reveals her depth. She dives into raw emotional states and emerges with something painfully beautiful.
There’s a heartbreaking scene deep in the third act — one of the emotional pivots of the entire film — where the past comes crashing into the present, forcing Kan’bulo to confront something she had long buried. It’s a moment of reckoning, of raw realization, and watching Azza deliver it left me breathless. The way she processes that tidal wave of guilt, confusion, and heartbreak — without a single false note — was nothing short of extraordinary. A single glance, a stifled breath, the trembling silence between her words… she made that scene hurt. And in doing so, she elevated a page I had wrestled with for weeks into something that now feels unforgettable.
It’s rare for a screenwriter to feel seen — word for word, emotion for emotion. But Mariyam Azza saw Kan’bulo. And through her, I believe the world will too.
Kan’bulo is set to be released on 31 August 2025.
Mahdi Ahmed 
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