Boxer Ramla Ali sweeps into the green room of a West End cinema, tiny in a frothy dress with a huge skirt of cascading black feathers. It is an absolute showstopper. She has just introduced the premiere of a new biographical film charting her life, and her phone is already buzzing with messages from high-profile figures in the audience, including adventurer Bear Grylls and Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai.
Yet, despite the celebrity well-wishes, the person who matters most is her mother, who is watching the film for the fourth time. Asked what her mother thinks of the production, Ali answers quietly, "She loves it."
The film, titled In the Shadows, is directed by Anthony Wonke and stars Top Boy actor Jasmine Jobson. It chronicles Ali’s extraordinary, turbulent journey to the 2021 Olympic Games in Tokyo—a path defined by immense hardship, resilience, and a series of life-altering events that began decades earlier in East Africa.
Ali was born in Somalia, but her early childhood was shattered by tragedy. When she was still a baby, her older brother, Abdulkadir, was killed in an explosion while playing outside. In the wake of the devastating loss and escalating civil war, the family made the perilous decision to flee Somalia. They undertook a dangerous crossing by boat to Kenya before eventually arriving in the United Kingdom as refugees.
Growing up in East Africa and later in East London, Ali faced a different kind of battle. She initially joined a boxercise class at a local gym after being bullied at school about her weight. As she began taking the sport more seriously, however, she was forced to keep her training hidden from her family. As a young Muslim girl, pursuing a combat sport was strictly prohibited within traditional expectations. Furthermore, she knew her mother—having moved heaven and earth to shield her surviving children from violence—would be utterly devastated to see her daughter willingly stepping into harm’s way. Today, in a stark reversal of those secretive early days, her mother is the very first person Ali calls after every professional fight.
The conception of In the Shadows dates back eight years, a timeline explained by Ali’s husband, Richard Moore, who recently walked into the green room. Moore, who formerly served as her coach and now acts as an executive producer on the film, notes that one of the primary catalysts for pitching the project back in 2018 was starkly practical: they were entirely broke.
"We were down to our last hundred quid," Moore recalls. "We were lucky at that time; we had friends who took us in and housed us." For a period, the couple found themselves living in a home owned by actor Idris Elba and his wife, Sabrina. "They were our saviours. Then we got Covid and had to stay for ages," Ali adds with a giggle.
Reflecting on the decision to bring her deeply personal story to the screen, Ali admits she had serious reservations. "Yes," she nods when asked if she had doubts. "I wasn’t sure I wanted to be so vulnerable, to sit down with a writer and tell her everything about my life, things I haven’t shared before."
She also had to weigh the emotional toll on her family, considering their shared trauma. "I remember thinking, how is it going to affect my mum? It’s my story, but it’s her story as well. When I talked to my family, none of them were really up for it."
Unexpectedly, it was her mother who changed her mind first and even intervened creatively. "My mum was adamant that the scene when my brother got killed be included. It had to be in," Ali says. Moore suggests that insisting on the scene’s inclusion was a way of keeping Abdulkadir’s memory alive, "remembering him, and making his death mean something bigger."
Ali falls quiet for a moment before noting that Abdulkadir’s death set off an unstoppable ripple effect that fundamentally altered the course of her entire family. "His death is the ripple effect," she says. "If my brother hadn’t died, we wouldn’t have come to the UK. I wouldn’t have taken up boxing. I wouldn’t have met Richard. My life would be so different."
While Ali stresses that the film is not designed as a political statement on immigration, she acknowledges that it offers a vital counter-narrative to the prevailing political rhetoric surrounding migrants arriving on boats. "It’s depicting a human migrant story," she explains. "Immigration has been weaponised politically to drive division in this country. Positive migrant stories don’t sell newspapers in the same way, so they rarely get told. But they are far more representative of the people who come here and build lives, families and careers. If audiences walk out seeing a person rather than a headline, the film has done its job."
Ali stands as living proof of a positive migration success story. In 2015, she made history by becoming the first Muslim woman to win an English amateur boxing title. Six years later, she walked out at the Tokyo Olympics as the first boxer ever to represent Somalia. Beyond the ring, she has carved out a profile in fashion—appearing on the cover of a British Vogue issue guest-edited by the Duchess of Sussex—while also establishing the Sisters Club in 2018, a charity that offers free boxing classes to vulnerable women. She also serves as a Unicef ambassador.
Far from being a passive subject, Ali insists she was heavily involved behind the scenes of In the Shadows, reviewing every draft of the script and remaining on set for every single day of filming. "Some exec producers just write their names on the film. But I worked for that title. I earned it," she asserts, noting that she even served as a body double during the boxing sequences.
Looking toward the future, Ali has begun contemplating life after boxing. Alongside Moore, she has written and directed a comedy film titled Not Like Us, and she has tested the waters with acting. "Boxing’s not for ever. There comes a day where you think: It’s time. Everyone laughs at me, but I keep saying it’s very similar to boxing. The dedication you’ve got to put into your boxing will show on the night in the ring. It’s the same with filmmaking. The level of dedication you’ve got to put in will show on screen."
As for her aspirations in the film industry, Ali hopes to bridge a distinct gap. "I feel like in America there are so many films made for Black people. I would love to be able to be in a position to tell more stories focused on the Black British experience."
That commitment to authentic storytelling is mirrored by Jasmine Jobson, who portrays Ali in the feature film. Jobson, who took over the role after Letitia Wright was initially attached to the project, arrived at the BFI Southbank for an interview accompanied by a full team comprising a publicist, makeup artist, and hairdresser. Striding across the room in Louboutin heels, she notes, "There’s not one part of my team that can be missing."
Looking remarkably fit, Jobson clarifies that her physique is not the result of ongoing boxing training. She explains that she is currently focused on physical therapy for an old shoulder injury sustained years earlier at the gym when she was training to become a personal trainer and pulled too much weight down on a lat-pulldown machine.
Despite having only two weeks to prepare for the rigorous physical demands of playing a champion boxer—training up to eight hours a day—Jobson took to the sport naturally, drawing on a childhood background in karate and kickboxing. "I absolutely loved boxing," she says. "I just don’t like getting my face touched. No one’s allowed to get my face. This is my money maker."
Jobson admits she felt an immediate connection to Ali after meeting her over coffee. "We had a nice little chat and got to know each other on a bit more of a deeper level. She’s overcome so much. To come out the other side, and to be an international success, to be able to change perceptions…" Jobson pauses before adding, "Something might feel distant, or not necessarily accepted. But if you are passionate about it, and you are very good at it, if it’s your talent, go for it. You can be a success story no matter what your dream is. She’s a testament to that. Kudos to her, man."
Asked if playing a living person felt intimidating, Jobson responds simply: "No. Not all. Any role I’ve played, I’ve incorporated myself into it."
Like Ali, Jobson’s own childhood was marked by severe adversity, making her artistic achievements deeply hard-fought. While her parents initially encouraged her performing talents, social services became involved during her secondary school years. Jobson moved out of her mother’s home to live with her grandmother, and eventually, at the age of 14, made the deliberate decision to place herself in foster care. "I had to do a very very deep dive within myself and take myself away from bad crowds, and figure out what my destiny was," she explains. "My brain got a little bit clouded, and I had to find Jasmine again."
A family friend eventually suggested she audition for The Big House, a North London theatre company that works specifically with care leavers, which ultimately led to her securing an agent. Like Ali, Jobson is known as a grafter, going so far as to memorize lines in Somali for In the Shadows. Reciting a phrase for the reporter, she translates: "’I just want you to be proud of me.’ That’s all I’ve ever wanted—for my family and everybody to be proud of me."
Reflecting on how much of herself she brought to the screen, Jobson concludes that the alignment was undeniable. "Oh, 100%. But at the same time, I had to make sure it was authentically Ramla. It’s not that we’ve had the same life experiences, but we both had struggles and we both had a dream."
