When a Somali youth worker is assigned a high-stakes case, her professional responsibilities pull her back toward a community — and a past — she has worked to leave behind. As the boundaries between her work and personal life begin to blur, her story becomes an intimate exploration of belonging, responsibility, and what it means to reconnect with the people and places that have shaped us.
Drawing from director Ilhan Abdullahi’s longstanding work alongside refugee and Black communities in Vancouver, Lifeline brings warmth, humour, and complexity to a story grounded in the Somali Canadian experience. Rather than defining its characters solely through struggle, the film makes room for the joy, resilience, relationships, and contradictions that exist alongside it. Rooted in a distinctly local community while resonating far beyond it, Lifeline offers a thoughtful portrait of the ties that bind us to one another, and the complicated journey of finding a way back to a community once left behind.
Content Considerations: Sound of gun shots
Oct 8 & 10: Filmmaker Q&A
Presented by
Media Partner
Muna Abdulahi, Hanad Abdi, Jason Benson, Saman Hasan, Bilal Salad, Abdishacur Ali
Canada
2026
In English and Somali with English subtitles
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits & Director
Executive Producer
Ilhan Abdullahi, Hanad Abdi, Sikandar Atiq, Abdullahi Hassan, Agam Darshi, Muna Abdulahi, Hanad Abdi
Producer
Mimi Dejene
Screenwriter
Ilhan Abdullahi
Cinematography
Alex Torres
Editor
Jasleen Kaur
Production Design
Donna Bozorgebrahimi
Original Music
Josh Santos, Sharma Boy
Ilhan Abdullahi
Ilhan Abdullahi is a Somali-Canadian filmmaker, producer, and community organizer based in Vancouver, on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. Shaped by her family’s migration journey and her own lived experiences, her work centers Black, Muslim, and migrant communities, exploring belonging, identity, joy, and community through narrative and documentary storytelling. Her short films have screened at festivals and on platforms, and include Dreamers (2023), Not For Us (2023), and the award-winning comedy Unqualified (2024). Her debut feature Lifeline (2026) was developed through the Whistler Film Festival Screenwriters Lab.
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