Khartoum
The Sudanese Civil War has displaced over 10 million of its citizens. Now, five survivors contend with their own memories, and hope for a peaceful future, using green screen technology to reenact their lives leading up to the military coup that forced their evacuation.
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Monday, May 19, 2025
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- Matinee
Wednesday, May 21, 2025
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- On Standby
- Matinee
What begins as a street-level documentary of five ordinary lives in Khartoum—a civil servant, a tea vendor, a resistance volunteer, and two young bottle collectors—evolves into a radically inventive chronicle of a city at the edge of collapse. Shot on donated iPhones by four Sudanese filmmakers working alongside British director Phil Cox, production was interrupted when war erupted in April 2023. The filmmakers fled Sudan and regrouped in Nairobi, where they transformed the project using green screen re-enactments, animation, and dreamlike visual reconstructions.
The film’s five interwoven stories bear witness to lives disrupted by conflict but never reduced by it. A mother sings lullabies to shield her daughter; two boys flee militias on the back of an invisible lion; a government worker hides from a regime unraveling around him. Through surreal vignettes and raw detail, Khartoum refuses the distancing lens of crisis coverage.
So while Khartoum began as a vérité documentary shot in Sudan, it became a diasporic production: completed in exile, shaped by displacement, and creatively reassembled across borders. A collaborative act of remembrance and resistance, it is not simply about a city under siege—it is made by those who fled it, carrying its stories with them.
—Nancy Pappas
- Director: Anas Saeed, Rawia Alhag, Brahim Snoopy, Timeea Mohamed Ahmed, Phil Cox
- Principal Cast: Lokain, Wilson, Jawad, Khadmallah, Majdi
- Country: Sudan, UK, Germany, Qatar
- Year: 2025
- Running Time: 80 min.
- Producer: Giovanna Stopponi, Talal Afifi
- Screenplay: Anas Saeed, Rawia Alhag, Brahim Snoopy, Timeea Mohamed Ahmed, Phil Cox
- Cinematographers: Anas Saeed, Snoopy Ibrahim, Waleed Alaa, Yousef Jubeh, Phil Cox
- Editors: Yousef Jubeh
- Music: James Preston
- Website: Official Film Website
- Awards: Berlinale 2025 (Peace Film Prize, Amnesty International Film Award), International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights 2025 (Gilda Vieira de Mello Prize)
- Filmography: Brahim Snoopy: From Sudan to Argentina (2022)
- Language: Arabic
- Has Subtitles: Yes
- Format: DCP
- International Sales: Autlook Films