Join us in May - June 2024 for the first segment of our “National Cinemas” series, focused on Sudan and the works of the Sudanese Film Group.
Art for the People: African National Cinemas looks at the emergence of “national” policies for cinema production in the era of decolonization movements and later postcolonial independent states in four countries, Nigeria, Sudan, Cameroon and Mozambique. This project looks critically at the frame of the “nation” as a fraught ideological and material context in which African films were made, promoted, circulated in the post-independence era. Each of these contexts, while harnessing the idea of the nation, offered very different approaches to the daunting task of decolonizing the image, and the role of cinema in creating a sense of collective, if not national identity, and political consciousness.
May 4th, 2024 in-person screening at Treehouse Lagos at 6PM, followed by a discussion with two of our curators, Ese & Dara.
The Sudanese Film Group
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, a group of filmmakers who were then working in the film department of the Ministry of Culture published the magazine CINEMA. This group founded the Sudanese Film Group (SFG) in April 1989 in order to be able to operate more independently from the state. Their goal was to be involved in all aspects of film production, screening and teaching, and to maintain Sudanese people’s passion for cinema. However, on June 30, 1989, the coup, which brought with it a distrust of all forms of art, ended all cultural aspirations. All civil society organizations were banned. In 2005, the state’s tight grip was finally loosened and the SFG was able to register again.
Currently, two of the members of the Sudanese Film Group, Suliman Elnour and Ibrahim Shaddad, were forced to leave Sudan with their families due to the outbreak of the war on April 15, 2023
Organizations and fundraisers to support:
Screening program:
‘جمل’ Jamal, (A Camel) 1981, Ibrahim Shaddad, 14’
Al Habil (The Rope), 1985, Ibrahim Shaddad, 31
’‘إنسان’ Insan (Human Being) 1994, Ibrahim Shaddad, 27’
‘جمل’ Jamal, (A Camel) 1981, Ibrahim Shaddad, 14’
Al Habil (The Rope), 1985, Ibrahim Shaddad
‘إنسان’ Insan (Human Being) 1994, Ibrahim Shaddad
“WE HELPED EACH OTHER BIRTH OUR IDEAS” : A CONVERSATION WITH THE SUDANESE FILM GROUP
Suhaib Gasmelbari’s 2019 Talking About Trees chronicles the attempts of veterans of Sudanese cinema to revive an old cinema in Khartoum. Berlin-based Arsenal – Institut für Film and Video Kunst facilitated the digital restoration of 8 short films by the Sudanese film group in 2020, as well as a subsequent re-release of these films. Founded in 1989 on the cusp of the military coup that saw Omar Al-Bachir rise to power in Sudan, the Sudanese Film Group sought to make independent films that reflected ongoing sociopolitical changes. Armed with a will to document and a stark belief in the power of cinema as a tool of political transformation, they journeyed across Sudan to make films and exhibit them to diverse audiences. Theirs was a commitment to a nomadic ethos of filmmaking and exhibition. Going by the urgency with which they approached their practice as well as the new representational vocabularies their works proffered the cinematic medium, it isn’t hard to see why a deeper consideration of the conditions that initially displaced their works off the radar of global cinematic circuits is necessary. Equally important is the question of how the international circulation of their works, occasioned by the twin factors of their portrait in Gasmelbari’s 2019 film and the restoration of some of their earlier films, is embedded within present-day conversations on audiovisual heritages and the politics of film preservation. Although restorations have helped secure a renewed interest in the Sudanese Film Group, there isn’t much available literature on the motivations of the filmmakers who comprise the group. We thought it necessary to highlight the peculiar conditions that produced these works: the political context; the cinematic landscape at the time; the nature of the training these filmmakers received as well as their aspirations both personal and professional.
As a collective, our engagement with the Sudanese Film Group forms an integral part of an ongoing commitment to filmic practices within the African continent and its diasporas that center, equally, political change and formal experimentation. The following is a transcription of a Zoom conversation hosted by Monangambee members Tobi Akinde and Dara Omotoso with Eltayeb Mahdi on behalf of the SFG on the 9th of November 2022. Originally intended as a series of conversations, this ongoing discussion was unfortunately stalled by the war that broke out in Sudan in April 2023, which subsequently forced members of the SFG into exile, once again.
Alongside Eltayeb Mahdi, Ahmed Elsadiq acted as a gifted translator, and insightful interlocutor, who remediated some of the linguistic and contextual gaps inherent in that kind of process. Yet such an endeavor is not without its difficulties. How does one compress the experiences from a distant past —ridden with vivid recollections of a repressive regime— into a digestible narrative encounter? An encounter mediated by translation, the instability of internet connections, both on our end in Lagos and on theirs in Khartoum, and the specific technological affordances of the Zoom Call. This text therefore is an ongoing testament to the resilience of spirit embodied by these brilliant filmmakers; their unflinching commitment to preserving their films as well as desire to pass down their experiences to newer generations. We hope this text retains traces of that indomitable spirit.
*This interview has been slightly edited for clarity.
DO: Thank you so much for your willingness to be in ongoing conversation with us! To get us started, could you tell us about the circumstances in which the SFG met?
SFG: Of course. Sometime close to the end of the 1970s we met at the Ministry of Culture and media. We started to make films with a little bit of help. After some time we decided to quit our government jobs and create a separate non-governmental entity that was primarily volunteer-run. Initially, we held our film screenings mostly in rural areas. You know these were the places where people needed them the most. We wanted to provide a chance to discover new kinds of films. Most screening spaces at the time were showing a lot of mainstream films, like Hollywood and that kind of stuff. We didn’t get to see films from Eastern or Western Africa!
And then, in the middle of the nineties, after a short time from when the SFG was formed, a dictatorship came into power. This new regime reigned from 1998. The coup that brought the regime to power was led by the Muslim Brotherhood, who were a bit like radical Islamists. They had a strong opinion about art and cinema, of course. It was very bad. They started to close cinemas all over the country. There were more than sixty cinemas all around Sudan. It's not like a big number, but it was better than nothing at least, you know. It was a decent number. They started to close them. One after the other. In a short time, people no longer had a chance to see films in cinemas.
TA: That problem you mentioned of not seeing ourselves and our specific geographies in the films we watch reminds me of Al Mahatta (The Station, 1989).
SFG: I made Al Mahatta while at the Ministry of Culture and Media. At the time, with the government, it was all empty talk about development and doing new projects: rails, roads, buildings and all that stuff. Even though it was a dictatorship. And you know how dictatorships work —they run a lot of propaganda. For me, Al Mahatta had to ask a very important question —is this development for the people or the industrialists? Did the government really launch this kind of infrastructure for the people who live in those places and for their benefit? Or did they create it for you know, big companies, supply chains and stuff like that?
TA: In Al Mahatta you are telling a story about propaganda and development. How did you reconcile these two topics and how did the process come to be for you?
SFG: I was inspired actually by a personal experience. When I was young, I went to Al Ghazal. It’s like a far place in the East and I went there from Khartoum, the capital, with my mother. When returning to Khartoum, we faced some difficulties that caused us to wait for a very long time at the station. While we waited, I saw various kinds of goods and products moving very easily. Yet there were transportation problems for regular people that the government could not manage. Everyday people were facing a lot of problems in their daily lives, despite the existence of a rich trade and exchange in the country at the time. This personal experience actually sparked the inspiration to make Al Mahatta.
DO: Before you made Al Mahatta, what kind of training did you have?
SFG: It was actually my third project. I made my first film when I graduated from the Cairo Institute of Cinema in Egypt. After I graduated, I did a film named Al Dhareeh (The Tomb, 1977). I made another film about children with disabilities and the kind of gaze they are subjected to, Arba'a marat lil-atfal (Four Times for Children, 1979). I was fascinated by what they were capable of doing. I did Al Mahatta ten years after graduation. I had a decent experience in filmmaking at the time and had developed a sense for the craft. There were a lot of sources of inspiration for me such as personal experience as well as good stories. My entire life is a process of observation from which I grab some ideas, and develop stories.
TA: It is interesting that you describe your life as an observation process. Is it related to how you came to the cinema?
SFG: In high school, I used to go to what was called the Sudanese Cinema Club. It was a kind of club where people met and watched movies and I discovered that I was fascinated by the films and stories. From there, I went to the Cairo Institute of Cinema, came back to Sudan, and met the other members of the SFG and we shared a kind of vision, as well as the necessity of creating and sharing.
El Sadiq: We are reviving this cinematic culture through screenings all over the country. After thirty years of operation, people still don’t have a proper chance to see their own films, not any different kind of films, but films that actually benefit the audience. Our primary interest is to create a space for that to happen. We try not to surrender to any kind of structure. The Sudanese Film Group shares a lot in terms of artistic vision and conception of cinema. They have a lot of knowledge and critiques. The friendship between them also helps them continue their work. They share this view of Sudan as a very rich country, rich in stories, myth, theology, and folklore. Here in Sudan, we have a lot of different cultures. People from different colors and different backgrounds. With this rich culture, you have a responsibility to share, to let the people have a chance to see themselves through cinema, and that's what we try to do, actually.
TA: I believe that this sense of responsibility kept you going but I also believe a sense of care also informed the approach of the collective.
SFG: Of course. We did most of the work as a collective. We helped each other birth our ideas. Even if a particular idea came from one of us, the entire group always contributed artistically and logistically. All the work we've done emerged out of collaboration between all members because we had limited resources. For example, when I make my film as a director, Ibrahim [Shaddad] helps with logistics, or maybe with the edits. We share both the technical and the artistic aspects.
TA: Individually, and even as a collective, limitation in material resources is still a problem for African cinema now.
SFG: True. As a group, we have a strong interest in Africa and films. We organize a screening series for African films. We screen films from all over Africa. This year, we are focusing on East Africa. So far, we have screened a lot of films from Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, and so on. It’s important to us that the Sudanese viewers see the cinema of their neighbors and people who are like them. We share similar social problems. We share a lot as Africans on the continent and it’s important to see one another. We believe some questions and answers can be worked through films. We call this our Neighbors’ Cinema. People from all over Sudan come to the screening places, and they also present some critical reviews, studies and seminars about cinema in Africa and in general.
TA: It is really beautiful that you talk about finding answers to our problems at the cinema because this medium also reflects us as people. I wonder how many films we have to forget to remember…
El Sadiq: The issue here is that a lot of films are forgotten. Here in Sudan, we used to have one of the biggest film archives. Unfortunately, most of the films were not properly stored which made it impossible to restore them.
A German company that came here to Sudan, did a project to digitize a lot of systems that were neglected by the Government. It all happened in the thirty years of the regime in Sudan. As I said before, they had a strong opinion about films and the documentation of the old Sudan. Sudan, before this dictatorship was kind of a different place with freedom of speech. Even the dress code was different. They forced a lot on the people: how to live, what to wear, what to do, etc. Projects that sought to restore old films and digitize them were stopped. There is a short Sudanese documentary on the state of the archives and the Sudanese Revolution which was released in 2018.
We have a big library of films here in Sudan, maybe like thirteen thousand rare films. It is actually very sad how these films are treated. We may have lost a lot of films and aspects of the past. But filmmakers continue to work and make some more, even though it is difficult. The practitioners persevere and remain hopeful. They continue to work, make films and tell stories. They try to continue their journey.
DO: When I think of the way Sudan is framed within popular media, it is this kind of monolithic discourse about conservative tendencies. Yet I am aware, as Mr. Altayeb has aptly pointed out, there is a wide range of political cultures that aggregate within the Sudanese context. I was wondering if Mr. Altayeb could expand upon that.
SFG: The conservative tendencies really do happen, and you can see the impact of this kind of explosion. The enforcement of conservative and radical views across the communities is real. You know they impose their power all over the place. Since they control the media and the TV and all of that, it facilitates the spread of that kind of radical propaganda. We’ve had a lot of civil wars in Sudan that are mostly fueled by this kind of ideology and propaganda. The dictatorship in Khartoum tried to stay in power by pushing these ideas.
TA: Cinema then becomes a necessary rebellion or a necessary source of hope….
El Sadiq: Yes. It’s also a way to find answers, I think. By representing these stories on screen, we illuminate aspects of our lives, and maybe find answers. We are fascinated as a collective by all the interesting films coming out of Nigeria, and we would be interested in showcasing some of the works from Nigeria and other countries across the continent.
* El Sadiq works professionally as a sound designer and videographer. He was in charge of sound design for Talking about Trees (Gasmalbari, 2019) and Sudan Forgotten Films (Gasmalbari, 2017), which can be accessed on Youtube. He would like to draw attention to the tragic story of another Sudanese filmmaker, who worked assiduously in the country’s cinema department but was caught on the other side in the wake of the separation of Sudan from South Sudan in 2011. Unfortunately, he died without making it back to Sudan. El Sadiq considers this a sad demonstration of the actual consequences of working as a filmmaker under such an unstable environment ridden with political tensions.