Yordanos Shifera

Yordanos Shiferaw was born in Asmara, the capital of Eritrea, sometime between the late 80s and the early 90s. As a child, she spent time in a refugee camp in Debre Zeyit, Ethiopia, after her mother died on the long and arduous journey made on foot. She lived with her father briefly before he died of an old war injury.

In the years that followed, she was separated from her four sisters and found herself constantly displaced. She did not receive an education and instead, was forced very early into living an adult life, working as a street shoeshine and human parking meter when she was homeless.

Around the age of 20, she found two of her sisters working as live-in maids in Beirut. She too was employed as a maid, until she fled her employer and continued to live and work illegally in the country.

In 2016, she was approached by Capharnaüm’s casting director, to whom she recounted her struggles, as well as her hopes of helping children with no guardians.

Like her character, Yordanos was arrested as an illegal immigrant in December 2016, during the shoot, and detained, before being released and later sponsored by Nadine Labaki.

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