Khartoum: Directors of Sundance film want the world to see what’s happening in Sudan

New documentary premiering at the long-running festival offers different perspectives of the war-torn country

A still from the documentary film Khartoum, screening at the Sundance Film Festival. Photo: Native Voice Films

“It’s not just a sad story from Africa. It’s not a reportage for CNN and the BBC. It’s real people with real dreams, with real hopes, that live in the most current of situations.”

Speaking over Zoom with his fellow directors, Sudanese filmmaker Timeea Ahmed is explaining the essence of Khartoum, a unique collective documentary project, which is premiering at this year’s Sundance Film Festival in Utah on Monday.

Following the lives of five citizens of the Sundanese capital, Khartoum began very differently. In 2021, making a film for UK newspaper The Guardian, British filmmaker Phil Cox encountered an organisation called the Sudan Film Factory.

“There was a new generation of Sudanese filmmakers with talent, ideas, energy,” explains Cox. “But they had no access to tech, no access to materials.”

Cox formulated a plan to work with the Sudan Film Factory, with selected filmmakers asked to create “non-narrative cinematic poems” dedicated to Khartoum, shooting material on their iPhones. Ahmed began filming Jawad, a Resistance Committee Volunteer. Fellow director Rawia Alhag filmed Lokain and Wilson, youngsters who collect plastic bottles for cash; Anas Saeed shot Khadmallah, a mother-of-one and tea stall owner; and Brahim Snoopy filmed civil servant and pigeon enthusiast Majdi.

Then, in April 2023, a civil war broke out in Sudan as the Rapid Support Force militia fought against the government led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. “Everything was lost,” sighs Cox, who was overseeing the project. Escaping to Kenya, the filmmakers joined the 10 million displaced Sundanese residents who lost their homes during the conflict. But despite being uncertain where the subjects of their films now were, they refused to give up.

“The idea of continuing became an act of resistance,” says Cox. “It became an act of affirmation of survival. As filmmakers, we don’t know if this film will succeed or not, but it can be a document. It can be something that is active for them to do, in their way, to fight back.”

Naturally, the tone of the film changed. “You can’t be living in war conditions without touching on that,” reasons Snoopy.

Months later, the filmmakers regrouped with the participants, initially getting them into therapy sessions. “Because someone seeing lot of dead bodies, a lot of atrocities in front of them on a daily basis, will impact them on a longer term,” says Snoopy.

With everyone gathered in Nairobi, Kenya, the directors began the second phase of filmmaking – one that helped turn Khartoum into a highly unusual documentary. As Khadmallah, Majdi and the others began to reflect on the terrible experiences they’d been through, the filmmakers took a left-field tack. Unable to film in Khartoum, they shot the participants in front of a green screen, an ideal solution to get them to tell their harrowing survival stories.

“We had to find a way to tell our participants’ stories in a creative way, where we let the audience experience what they’ve experienced during war,” says Snoopy.

Often, each subject would “act” in another’s story, in what became something akin to experimental theatre. “Of course, war affects everyone on so many levels,” adds Saeed. “And this staged re-enactment also played a huge role in healing all of us. It wasn’t easy on all of us. Some of us really became emotional during that. We cried – the directors and participants – because it’s not easy.”

While the filmmakers and their subjects escaped, they’re in constant contact with those still in Sudan. Alhag notes that in Khartoum, there is a group called the RC – the Resistance Community – to help people find food. “Even outside of Khartoum, people are doing these kind of initiatives,” she says. “We are still connected to Khartoum. We are still communicating with everyone there.”

With the film premiering at the Sundance festival in the World Documentary category, Khartoum’s journey is all about raising awareness. Screenings are scheduled in Washington DC and New York, where the team will present the film to the US Congress and the United Nations, before taking it to the Berlin Film Festival in February. “There’s a new Sundanese cinema arriving – and you’re looking at it,” says Cox.

Snoopy hopes audiences will walk away with more knowledge about what's happening in Sudan, and also that they will donate via the film’s website, khartoummovie.com.

“But also on a smaller level, just a simple retweet, a simple share, a simple comment, would mean a lot to us, because that will show that our message is being heard and seen,” he says.

Or as Saeed adds: “We need to say, ‘Don’t give up'.”

While it would be all too easy to present Khartoum as a dour film, the subjects all have hopes and dreams. The boys who collect bottles dream of seeing a lion one day, while Jawad is shown – via green screen – floating over Los Angeles as he heads towards Hollywood. There are more realistic dreams too. “We still have the hope of going back,” says Alhag. “And that’s not just my dream or Anas’s or Timeea’s or Snoopy’s. This is the whole Sudanese dream.”

Khartoum premieres at the Sundance Film Festival on Monday