For someone who grew up surrounded by war, noise, and urgency, this calm still feels significant.
'I came from big cities where life is stressful,' he says. 'But here, everything is relaxed and calm.'
Ibrahim is a filmmaker, cinematographer, editor and often all three at once. His work revolves around motion, but his life in Rwanda has taught him the value of stillness. It’s a lesson he didn’t expect to learn in a country the world once defined almost entirely by tragedy.
He first felt it the moment he landed at the Kigali International Airport.
'I landed in Rwanda, and the first moment I stepped into the airport, I felt something,' he says. 'It was like it could become home.'
In his early days, he spent most of his time at Mocha Café in Kigali. Coffee turned into conversations with strangers. Strangers became friends. Friends became family. It happened naturally, without effort. Coming from cities where survival required constant alertness, the openness disarmed him.
'I met a lot of people,' he says. 'They became friends. They became family.'
Ibrahim’s relationship with conflict is not theoretical. He was born in Baghdad in 1998. War was already part of the city’s language by the time he could understand it. When the American invasion began in 2003, chaos followed quickly. His father, a journalist with Al Jazeera, knew how dangerous everything could be. In 2004, the family left Iraq.
Baghdad became a memory suspended in time. He hasn’t returned since.
'I left Iraq in 2004,' he says. 'Sadly, ever since then, I haven’t seen my hometown.'
Rwanda, too, carries the weight of memory. In 1994, a million lives were lost in the Genocide against the Tutsi. The country the world expected to collapse chose a different path, one that Mushtaq openly admires.
Thirty years after the genocide, Rwanda hosts international sporting events, builds infrastructure at a staggering pace, and quietly rewrites the assumptions placed upon it.
'What happened 30 years ago and what you see today, no country on this planet can achieve that in 30 years,' Ibrahim says.
It’s that contrast that keeps him here.
He arrived in Africa in 2023 as a filmmaker on assignment, unaware that the continent might leave a mark on him personally. Having grown up in Qatar after leaving Baghdad, and later moving to Turkey to study cinema and begin his career, Africa was not on his map. His first stop was Uganda, where he went with his father and brother to film a project.
The timing, however, was far from ideal. Work was delayed by the Gaza war, and the unfamiliar surroundings quickly took a toll. Malaria struck, leaving him bedridden for fifteen days. Isolated and exhausted, the new environment felt overwhelming.
'At that moment, I decided to go back to Turkey and never return to Africa,' he says.
But his father remained behind, moving on to Rwanda, and it was through him that Ibrahim was introduced to the country. Weeks later, a single photo of a roundabout framed by the Kigali skyline and the Convention Center arrived with a simple note: 'Just give it a chance.'
He did, and what followed was movement.
After settling in, Ibrahim rented a car and began driving. Not just Kigali, but beyond it. North. South. East. West. Villages. Districts. Forests. Hills. He discovered an impressive Rwanda: rainforests in Nyungwe alive with monkeys, mist rolling through Volcanoes National Park, roads that curve endlessly through green.
'Kigali is just one part of Rwanda,' he says. 'You need to go and discover the nature, the diversity.'
By the time he finished, he had seen nearly 90 percent of the country.
His camera became both witness and argument.
When friends back home joked about Africa, do they have phones, cars, internet? Ibrahim didn’t respond with words. He posted stories. Reels. Quiet moments of daily life. Clean streets. Safety. Beauty.
'They don’t know,' he says. 'That’s the stereotype.'
People started asking questions. Then they started visiting.
Professionally, Rwanda unlocked something new.
Starting a business was easy. So he did. Premium Cut Production became his base, a production house where projects move from idea to final cut under one roof. He shot for clients, cafés, events. Slowly, the work grew.
The UCI Road World Championships in September 2025 marked a turning point. As one of the event’s photographers, Ibrahim moved behind the scenes, watching cyclists collapse from exhaustion after Rwanda’s relentless hills, documenting fleeting moments.
'One was sitting on the ground, tired,' he says. 'His whole team was around him. He was exhausted because Rwanda is very challenging.'
Away from work, Rwanda reshaped his body as much as his mind.
'I used to smoke for almost 15 years,' he says. 'Then the environment and the community here made me see myself as different, so I quit.'
He started running. Training. Lifting weights at Soho, where fitness turned into community. The running club meets twice a week. Thirty to sixty runners. Consistent. Quietly disciplined.
'This environment gave me a feeling of calmness, of a healthy environment,' he says.
Ibrahim thinks often about what comes next, not for himself, but for others.
He dreams of giving back to Rwanda through a free filmmaking school or weekly workshops for Rwandan youth. “We learned from others; it’s our duty to pass it on,” he says. His goal is to provide aspiring filmmakers with the tools to build their skills and income. “No fees, just tools,” he adds.
He encourages young videographers and photographers to seek information online, to copy styles at first, learn from mistakes, and eventually develop their own unique voices.
'YouTube has billions of tutorials,' he points out.
One day, he hopes to return to Baghdad. To walk the streets he left as a child. To see what time has done to the place that shaped him. Until then, Kigali holds his present.
Watch the full video below.
Rania Umutoni
