What is the plot of In The Shadows?

Ali and her family arrived in London from war-torn Somalia. They fled the country first to Kenya, then the UK, after the civil war and the death of her brother. The family settled in Bethnal Green in east London, where Ali took up boxing to escape the bullying she often faced, keeping the sport from her parents.

The film will be both a sports drama and a coming-of-age story as it follows Ali becoming the first Somali British professional boxing champion, her journey within a strict Muslim family and meeting her now husband, her former boxing coach, Richard Jones.

Although Ali is an exec-producer on the film alongside her husband, she wasn’t initially keen to bring her story to life on screen, as she told Stylist back in 2019

“I really wasn’t into the idea at first because it just felt so exposing,” she told Stylist. “I didn’t want my life put out there for everyone to see. But I’ll hand it to the producer, Lee Magiday [who produced The Favourite] – she was persistent! She came to watch me compete, she took me for dinner, she met my family – over a period of two years she didn’t let it go and now she feels like family. So, I thought: You know what, if my story’s going to be made by anyone, I want it to be her.”

Persistence clearly pays off, and we’re very grateful…

In The Shadows: Top Boy’s Jasmine Jobson stars in a powerful new film about a boxing trailblazer