Director Kaizer Matsumunyane is currently working on a film with a tentative release of this year which tells the story of Abduwali Muse, the sole-surviving member of the Somalian pirate crew responsible for hijacking the American Maersk Alabama in 2009. The documentary film, titled The Smiling Pirate, will recount the well-known events for the first time from the perspective of the young survivor who’s been sentenced to 33 years to life in U.S. federal prison, despite having allegedly been only sixteen years old at the time of the hijacking. Matsumunyane feels that such a film is needed to counterbalance the 2013 Hollywood blockbuster hit movie Captain Phillips. That movie’s portrayal of events was lambasted by other Americans who were onboard the hijacked Maersk ship. According to them, the movie falsely portrayed Captain Richard Phillips as a hero, when in fact he knowingly put the ship’s entire crew in harm’s way.
Matsumunyane explains his own film’s premise this way:
“There is a saying – That until the lion tells the story, the story of the hunt will always glorify the hunter… If you are treating pirates as faceless savages without really knowing who they are and why they are doing what they are doing then piracy will continue to wreck lives.”
Get a sneak peek at the upcoming movie here, and be sure to check out Radar’s exclusive report as well as the following additional links for more little-known information that was left out of the Hollywood film starring Tom Hanks:
- Inside an American ‘Torture’ Chamber: Somali Pirate Who Hijacked Captain Phillips Speaks Out from Prison
- What You Won’t Learn About Somali Pirates From Captain Phillips
- Tom Hanks, Captain Phillips and the “True Story” of Somali Piracy
- Inside Somaliland’s pirate prison, the jail that no country wants
- SOMALIA: Russia executed all Somali pirates – spokesman
- Captain Phillips Actor Says He Only $65K for $217M Grossing Film
United States Hypocrisy 
I think it’s pretty safe to assume the federal government is lying until proven otherwise.
Haha. That’s a great point Stuart Bramhall. That’s especially true when it comes to what it has to say about foreign countries.