Cinema of Sudan
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Cinema of Sudan refers to both the history and present of the making or screening of films in cinemas or film festivals, as well as to the persons involved in this form of audiovisual culture of the Sudan and its history from the late nineteenth century onwards. It began with cinematography during the British colonial presence in 1897 and developed along with advances in film technology during the twentieth century.
After independence in 1956, a first era of indigenous Sudanese documentary and feature film production was established, but financial constraints and discouragement by the Islamist government led to the decline of cinema from the 1990s onwards. In the 2010s, several initiatives by Sudanese filmmakers both in Khartoum as well as in the Sudanese diaspora have brought about a revival of filmmaking and public interest in film shows in Sudan. Since 2019, a new generation of Sudanese filmmakers such as Hajooj Kuka, Amjad Abu Alala, Suhaib Gasmelbari, Marwa Zein and Suzannah Mirghani have attracted international attention.
Cinema in colonial Sudan
Sudan saw some of the earliest
In 1921, the British silent war film The Four Feathers, whose story takes place during the Anglo-Egyptian campaign against the Mahdist State, was partly shot in Sudan.[5] Eight years later, the American silent movie The Four Feathers (1929) was produced for Paramount Pictures, again with some scenes filmed in Sudan.[6] The same story has been turned into several later movies, of which The Four Feathers (1939), filmed on location in Technicolor by Zoltan Korda has been considered as the most "harrowingly beautiful of all desert spectaculars."[7]
Starting in the late 1920s,
In the 1940s, the colonial government employed mobile cinemas on vans and the Sudan Railways’ ‘Public Enlightenment’ Car, trying to influence local audience's perceptions of the Second World War. British officials were concerned about how Sudanese, like colonial subjects in other colonies, would see events in Europe. Desert Victory (1943), a film about the Allies' North African campaign against German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel and the Afrika Korps, and Partners in Victory, a documentary about the Sudan Defense Force in North Africa, were projected for crowds in provincial capitals all over Sudan. These travelling movie shows presented war films and short films about government information and educational themes, made by the mobile Sudanese film-making unit for Sudanese audiences.[10]
In her book "Living with Colonialism: Nationalism and Culture in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan" historian Heather J. Sharkey describes the influence of photographs and films through the British educational system:[11]
Gordon College served as photography's first point of transfer to Sudanese (as opposed to European) audiences. The college exposed students to a range of film media, including photographically illustrated books, snapshots and studio portraits, magic lanterns […] and narrative (cinematic) film. Because photographs and pictures enabled the boys and Old boys of Gordon College to see and hence to imagine the world, the British Empire, and the Sudan in new ways, visual culture was as important to the development of nationalism as the culture of words.
— Heather J. Sharkey, Living with colonialism: nationalism and culture in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan
It was precisely in the emerging visual art of
Cinema from independence up to the 2010s
From 1950s to 1980s
When Sudan gained
In an article about the rise and decline of cinema in the city of Wad Madani, the popularity of "going to the movies" was explained in terms of its importance for public cultural life, providing a "fresh breath of freedom in light of the country's independence." For many urban dwellers, movie shows were the only public forms of entertainment at the time. This applied both to educated and less educated people, as well as to women and girls, who were admitted as families in the company of their male relatives.[17]
The first
The Sudanese filmmaker with the most widely ranging work of more than 100 documentaries and newsreels,
Established in 1989, the Sudan Film Group (SFG) in Omdurman, a non-profit organisation promoting film shows and the local film industry was composed of professionals involved in filmmaking, artistic production and development communication. The SFG has produced films, organises shows, trainings and workshops and also was screening films in outdated cinemas.[24]
1990s to 2010
After the military coup of 1989,
In their 2017 documentary Sudan's forgotten films, Suhaib Gasmelbari and Katharina von Schroeder created a portrait of the last two remaining Sudanese film experts, Awad Eldaw and Benjamin Chowkwan, who had been trying for 40 years to take care of the National Film Archives. The archive holds about 13.000 films, and was critically endangered by neglect from the government, extreme weather conditions and a general disregard for historical films from the country's early decades since independence.[29][30]
Enjoying wider margins of expression, some filmmakers of Sudanese origin and living abroad made independent films about their country, like British-Sudanese filmmaker Taghreed Elsanhouri. Her documentaries Our Beloved Sudan, All about Darfur, Orphanage of Mygoma and Mother Unknown explore both the complex society in Sudan as well as the film director's views as a member of the important Sudanese diaspora community.[31][32]
Revival of cinema and movie production since the 2010s
Fresh start with digital productions
Aided by the introduction of
As there is no specialised institution for training or public funding for producing or presenting films in Sudan, filmmakers have been focussing on commercial, corporate, music or wedding videos, or by distributing their films online. Some are employed as
In 2014, Sudanese filmmaker Hajooj Kuka, who lives both in Sudan and abroad, made an internationally acclaimed documentary film about the ongoing attacks of the Sudanese army on the people in the Nuba mountains. Kuka's film Beats of the Antonov provides an artistic collage about war, music, and local identity on Sudan's southern frontiers and could not be shown in Sudan under the government of the time.[36] In 2015, director Mohammed Kordofani was distinguished as best director with the Taharqa International Award for Arts for his short film Gone for Gold. His second short film, Nyerkuk (2016),[37] received numerous distinctions, including the Network of Alternative Arab Screens (NAAS) Award at Carthage Film Festival, the Jury Award at Oran International Arabic Film Festival, and the Black Elephant Award at the Sudan Independent Film Festival.[38]
Contemporary filmmakers and movies
In 2015, parts of the film archive of Gadalla Gubara were digitised by a German-Sudanese film restoration project, and thus his documentaries about everyday life in Khartoum of the 1960s, as well as his feature film Tajouj could be shown to new generations in Khartoum as well as abroad.[28]
The 40-minute feature film Iman: Faith at the crossroads, directed and written by filmmaker Mia Bittar, was produced in 2016 with the support of UNDP Sudan and presented the same year at the headquarters of the UN in New York.[39] It tells four stories of young Sudanese, who have been attracted by terrorism, and is based on true events.[40][41]
In 2019, the documentary Talking about Trees by Suhaib Gasmelbari,[42][43] a story about three Sudanese filmmakers of the 1960s and the decline of cinema in Sudan, won awards at the Berlin International Film Festival and other international festivals.[44][45]
A female Sudanese filmmaker, who studied film direction in Egypt and Germany, is Marwa Zein. Her documentary Khartoum Offside[48] tells the story of the first Sudanese women's soccer team in Khartoum.[49] This film had its world premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2019 and won awards at other international film festivals.[50]
Suzannah Mirghani, who has been making short films since 2011, became internationally known through her sixth short film Al-Sit. The film won 23 international awards, including three Academy Award qualifying prizes in 2021.[53] At the 2021 Luxor African Film Festival, Sudanese actor Al-Tayeb Al-Hadi Al-Tayeb was awarded a "Special Mention" for his role in the short film Listen To My Dance, directed by Alyaa Sirelkhatim.[54]
Also in 2021, the documentary film
In November 2022, Sara Suliman's documentary Heroic Bodies had its first public performance at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA). Based on the filmmaker's dissertation at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London and spanning Sudanese social history from colonial times to the late 20th century, the film investigates "how the human body was used as a means of resistance against the state, patriarchy and colonial oppression."[57][58]
In April 2023, Goodbye Julia, by Sudanese filmmaker Mohamed Kordofani, was the first Sudanese film to win the Prix de la Liberté (Freedom Prize) in the Certain Regard section of the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. It was also the first feature film produced by Station Films, a Sudanese production company founded by Amjad Abu Alala and Mohamed Alomda.[59]
Revival of public film shows
Starting in early 2021, and in the context of measures for social distancing during the Covid-19 pandemic, the British Council in Khartoum and local sponsors organised a film festival for both European and Sudanese movies at an outdoor, drive-in cinema space, thus presenting film shows in a new way.[60] This format of the European-Sudanese Film Festival was repeated in June 2022, when new movies by upcoming Sudanese filmmakers were shown.[61] In May 2022, Bono Cinema, the "first international cinema" in Sudan started showing current foreign movies in Khartoum with a capacity of more than 300 seats.[62]
See also
- Arab cinema
- Visual arts of Sudan
- Hussein Shariffe
- Gadalla Gubara
- List of Sudanese submissions for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film
Sources
This article incorporates text from a free content work. Licensed under C-BY-SA 3.0 IGO. Text taken from The African film industry. Trends, challenges and opportunities for growth, UNESCO.
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Further reading
- Fanack magazine (2016) Culture of Sudan: Film, online article
- ISBN 0520929365, 9780520929364
External links
- On Cultural Resistance, Sudanese cultural magazine Andariya about the Sudan Independent Film Festival (SIFF) 2015
- Backstage with Fuzzy Wuzzy: Reflections on the Representational Influences on Filming ''Our Beloved Sudan''
- Interview with Amjad Abu Alala & the Cast of 'You Will Die at Twenty' on YouTube
- Trailer for Khartoum Offside on Vimeo